Not All Informants Are Created Equal
by latenightrain
Summary: A Pulse Update Respone, M/L ALL THE WAY. At long last, an update. Closing in on the ending - A Logan/Max adventure story, life is never simple for the real heroes.
1. Ch1 How Innocently It Begins

_Seattle, Washington._

Logan pushed open the door to Fogle Towers and rolled smoothly into the lobby. The afternoon sun streamed briefly across the marble floor. Then, the door closed behind him. He looked down at Eva's face, nestled close to him. She often fell asleep on the way home from school. Now, she barely opened an eye as he carried her in from the car. He remembered when she was an infant, snug in baby carrier he used to keep her from sliding off his lap. Now, her legs stretched down past his knees, one skinned knee sticking out. As the elevator door opened, Eva sat up and stretched lazily. In a moment, she was up on her dad's knees, pressing the button for the penthouse. Nimble as a cat, like her mother, she balanced for a moment on tiptoe, then flopped back onto Logan's lap. Eva considered pressing the penthouse button her "job." It was one of the many small jobs that Logan had given her since she turned five.

It was laughable now that he used to feel self conscious going to Crash or wheeling himself through the market. Five years with Eva had rid him of any remaining feelings of self consciousness in the chair. As far as Eva was concerned, Logan could do anything that dads were supposed to do. And not wanting to disappoint her, Logan had hauled himself onto carousel ponies, crawled across sandboxes, and paddled gamely in the pool with his young daughter. These days, his backpack still held informant files, but they always had rooms for a water bottle, a few snacks for Eva, and a toy or two.

Once in the apartment, Eva skipped off his lap and down the hall. Logan moved to the kitchen to put away the few items they had picked up from the market. He tried not to look at a pair of sandals lying on the floor next to the door. The sandals had lain there since the day Max had gone away four months ago. Logan and Max had always had a contingency plan for quick escapes. A fast getaway - in case there was any word of a blown cover for either of them. That night, the informant had whispered frantically into the phone about transgenics and Manticore. Since the contact had only mentioned Max, not Eyes Only, they had decided that she would run, alone. Like the mother bird, feigning injury, she would lead the predators away from her nest. Max had clung to him for a moment, kissed Eva's smooth cheek, and disappeared into the night.

In the weeks that went by, Logan waited for word from Max. They had arranged to contact each other via the newspaper classifieds or anonymous PO boxes, but both had been eerily silent. Sebastian, the designated go-between, had heard from her once, but not again. Once, he had glimpsed a few words in an ad that he felt sure had to be a message from Max, but he couldn't be sure. He longed for some other confirmation from her, but none came.

At first, the difficulties of life as a single parent had left little time to worry about Max. They had been apart before, but not since Eva was born. Suddenly, all the little things that Max used to do, which Logan had taken for granted, seemed to take up all his time. He had not realized how many times Max chased Eva up a slide, climbed a tree to fetch an errant kite, or reached onto a high shelf at the grocery store to get Eva's favorite food. S lowly, Logan and Eva, began to find their way together. Logan figured out a way to back up the short flight of stairs to Eva's classroom. And Eva learned to climb from Logan's lap to his shoulder to reach the tops of their closets.

And Original Cindy helped too. After Max had been gone for a week, Cindy had appeared at the door. When Logan opened the door, she had walked right in and announced that she was taking Eva to the park. She whisked her off for two hours and returned the tired, but happy, preschooler to Logan. Thereafter, she appeared about two or three times a week for the outings or errands. She stayed for dinners sometimes and Logan welcomed her company.

The weeks had slipped by. Logan spent nights compiling Eyes Only data collected from informants. He had tried his best to find out who had exposed Max's Manticore past and sent her running, but he was reluctant to do too much probing. He and Max had decided that they could not take the chance that the trail would lead back to Logan and Eva. So, he had left the probing to Max.

He bathed Eva and read her a story on her favorite cushion. Now, she gave him a sleepy goodnight kiss and he transferred carefully back to his chair, silently wheeling back out to the kitchen. The steady rain drew his eyes up to the window and he subconsciously shook his head, refusing to think about where Max might be. As he passed his desk, a plain, manila envelope, stuck between some other papers on his desk, caught his eye.

He had forgotten about that envelope. One of his most trusted informants had given it to him, saying that it was the contact information of a potential new contact.

"Look, I'm not really in the market for new informants," he had said. "No offense, but I'm trying to keep the circle pretty tight right now and I trust you already, so…" He didn't know how to finish the sentence. There was no way to explain why he was being so furtive lately. None of his informants knew about Max or Eva and he planned to keep it that way.

"Well, take it or leave it, then. I told him that I couldn't promise him anything anyway. It just seemed like a good opportunity, since he worked as a press secretary in the attorney general's office."

Logan moved into the exercise cum playroom, Eva's toys sharing space with Logan's workout equipment. He lowered himself to the mat, braced himself against the wall for support and began to go through his usual series of stretches. He smiled as he allowed his thoughts to drift to Max. Over the years, Max would sometime take over his stretching. She would gently stretch each foot, ankle, and knee, taking his joints through all the positions they no longer assumed on their own. More often than not, her hands were drift up to the more sensitive parts of his body and they would end up spending a lot longer in the exercise room than they intended. It was a good thing Eva was a sound sleeper.

Eight years in the chair was a long time. He had continued to work on his upper body strength and flexibility daily. Over the years, he had added self-defense and jiu- jitsu to his regimen too. Max had learned long ago that Logan was going to keep doing his own investigating and reconnaissance. So, she only slightly raised an eyebrow when he began the jiu jitsu training. He had come a long way since his early days after the shooting. Five years ago, the fiery crash that had destroyed Bessie, the ancient Aztek, had also irreparably damaged the exoskeleton Since that time, he had started using long leg braces and a walker to ambulate at least once a week. Bling had prescribed it to improve bone density and had added a laundry list of other reasons too. Logan couldn't help grinning as he remembered the times Max would sneak up on him, stand toe to toe with him, peering mischievously into his eyes. More often than not, she would wrap her arms around his neck and kiss him, long and deep. It was at those times that Logan swore that he would have needed the braces to remain standing even if he'd still had an intact spinal cord. The next thing he knew, they would end up on the bed, in a jumble of arms and legs, trying frantically to climb out of their clothes and under the covers.

Logan shook his head in a futile attempt to push his thoughts of Max aside. He thought again about the new informant. It certainly seemed tempting to meet with him. It had been a long time, since he'd found a really productive new informant, one with really worthwhile information. Maybe it was worth a try. At least it would take his mind off those sandals by the front door. Logan opened the envelope, which he had laid on the exercise mat next to him, and began to leaf through the pages. So much for finishing the workout.

Three hours later, he logged off the computer, satisfied that he had verified the informant's vague credentials as much as was possible, given the fact that he didn't even have a real name for him. It would have to do. He pulled himself into bed and fell asleep with the lights still on.

The next morning, he found himself sitting alone in a booth at the Five-O-One Diner. It was one in the regular circuit of places he used for informant meets. The staff had seen him a few times, but could hardly call him a regular. The diner entrances provided him easy accessibility, good visibility of the street and a variety of parking options. "Yes," he thought grudgingly to himself, "I certainly have this down to a science." He had tucked his wheelchair behind the high-backed seat and settled into the booth. No point in a new informant knowing too much about his Eyes Only "contact" at this stage. He ordered a cup of black coffee, flipped open a copy of last week's Newsweek, and settled down to wait for "Mr. Y."

Tim Young, "Mr. Y," dropped his keys twice while locking up his car. He took a few deep breaths and walked the half block to the Five-O-One Diner. His contact had given him only the barest of instructions. He had been working at the attorney general's office for only a few months, but he had already realized that the corruption had seeped into virtually every office in that building. Deep down, he really considered himself to be a timid guy. But something had made him answer Eyes Only's call to arms. Perhaps, he was just drawn to the excitement and danger. "Come alone and look for the man reading last week's Newsweek," the contact had said. He glanced at his pale reflection in the glass door, hesitated for a moment, then pushed his way in.

Logan had glimpsed Tim's face through the glass just a moment before he entered the diner. He breathed in sharply, fingers tightening on the magazine. There was nowhere to hide, even if he could have scrambled away somehow. "Great," he thought, "the last thing I need is to be interrupted by some old college buddy during an informant meet."

Tim rounded the divider that separated the entrance from the rest of the room and scanned the room's occupants. At a glance, he could see no one reading any magazines, only a couple of men reading the newspaper. Well, he was a few minutes early. Maybe his Eyes Only man wanted to make him sweat a little.

"No worries there," he thought, "I'm definitely sweating already." The room held only about a dozen diners, so he scanned them again. Only then, did he see the familiar looking man in the booth at the back. His heart raced. He really did not need someone he knew seeing him meet with an Eyes Only contact. Before he could look away, however, the man looked up, and their eyes met.

"Tim Young, what are you doing here?"

"Logan Cale, is that really you? It's probably been at least 10 or 12 years since I last talked to you."

Tim stood in front of Logan's booth, seemingly undecided about what to do next. Then, he sat down abruptly across from Logan. Inwardly, Logan groaned.

"Oh well, I guess I'll scrap the meet and just reschedule it later. Might as well chat with Tim now that I'm here," Logan thought. He ordered up another coffee and turned his attention to his old college friend. Careful to hide it from the other man, he tucked the Newsweek back into the bag on the seat beside him. The conversation turned to work and Logan began to tell about his freelance writing for various journals. Suddenly, Logan was drawn back to his companion's words.

"I've been at the attorney general's office now for the past couple of years. I don't do too much writing of my own though, you know how it is," Tim was saying.

Suddenly, Logan's heart was pounding. Tim WAS his informant. Somehow, this loud-mouth party-boy-turned-civil servant had been convinced do his part for justice and the American way.

"Okay, now I really have to get out of here before party-boy figures out why I'm here. The last thing I need is an informant who knows Logan Cale personally. Maybe, I can get Bling or someone else to meet with this guy later, but, right now, I have got to get out of here."

Logan paused in his thoughts. If he left now, Tim would know about the chair. Oh well, better that Tim know about the chair than the Eyes only connection. He couldn't chance staying here any longer. Hurriedly, he made his decision.

"Hey Tim, I'm sorry, but I've got to run. Maybe I can give you a call sometime and we can catch up."

Tim seemed relieved. Swallowing his last sip of coffee, Logan casually reached behind the seat and pulled his chair into position next to the seat. He transferred to the chair, settling his feet on the footrest. He looked up into Tim's questioning eyes.

"Car accident. It's been 8 years now…long time. Well, good to see you." Logan offered his hand. Tim shook it. He frowned for a moment at Logan's other hand, resting on the wheel rim.

"Sorry about that," Tim stammered.

"Yeah, well, see ya" Logan said briskly, spinning himself toward the door.

He almost made it out of the diner.

"Hey, buddy! You forgot your magazine. It fell under the table". Breathlessly, the waiter waved the old copy of Newsweek, at Logan's retreating back. He tried to turn away, but it was too late. He looked up at Tim, whose eyes stared back at him in recognition. Tim stared at him incredulously, getting up to follow him out of the diner.

"_You're_ the Eyes Only contact. Why didn't you say so?" Tim whispered after they were out on the street.

"Look, Eyes Only has given us all strict instructions that we are not to meet with any informants that we know personally. He would have reassigned you to meet with someone else."

Tim's steps slowed and he nodded at Logan. "I guess that means this chair is a fake then, part of the undercover disguise…"

"No," Logan grunted, "the chair is real, me sitting in this chair is real, and I am still your contact. Here's the info about how to contact me," he said brusquely, shoving a paper into Tim's hand. "Let me know when you have something."

Disgusted with himself for blowing part of his cover, he left Tim on the street corner to contemplate his new role in "helping the helpless."


	2. Ch2 Always a Possibility of Wild Geese

Desmond, Washington

_Desmond, Washington._

Looking through the dusty window of the bus, Max watched the faded city roll by. Along the curb, she saw the discarded old dryers or old couches, awaiting new owners or garbage disposal trucks, whichever came first. In spite of herself, Max had grown attached to her dingy little safe house. Now, she had a sense of foreboding as she sped away from the small town. One hundred twenty-five days ago, she had left her beloved Ninja in the garage and gotten onto a bus, holding a bag with more ID's than clothes. After a day and a half of crossing and re-crossing the same roads, she found herself at the front door of the safe house in Desmond, an dusty, nondescript city halfway to the Canadian border.

"I'd kill for a hot shower right about now," she had thought grimly to herself, as she had headed for the bathroom. She had swept aside the shower curtain, her eyes falling on the low metal bench in the shower. Her mind went back to the day they had brought the bench to the safe house for Logan. Eva had climbed onto the bench to grab the shower head and had managed to spray herself and both her parents, shrieking and laughing.

They had set up the safe houses together. Now, she was here alone.

Max had leaned her head against the cool tiles, "The sooner I find that rat and squeeze him until he tells me what he knows, the sooner I can go home."

That was four months ago. Tracking down the source of the tip proved to be harder than she thought. As the designated go-between, Sebastian had sent her all the information they had on the tip. She had gone over it countless times. The informant had heard that there was a hit out on a transgenic, a woman who had been worked on a mission with Eyes Only. The next day, the informant had turned up dead. A search of his apartment had yielded only a note with a few scrawled words and an address to an internet café. There had also been large, empty, mailing envelope with the address partly removed. She had spent two weeks combing through all the email traffic that had gone in and out of the café during the week preceding the tip, but the work had yielded nothing but a stiff neck. In desperation, she had followed the partial address to a shipping company on the California-Oregon border, but the trail had ended there. All the while, she had lain low in between her snooping missions, not wanting to arouse too much suspicion, since she still had no idea whom she was chasing.

The headlights from the oncoming traffic played across her face as she fingered the note and the envelope. In truth, the note was actually a transcript of a note, emailed to her by Sebastian. Something about the difficulty in encryption had prevented him from scanning the actual note for her. Max's dog-eared copy read,

TRANSGENIC X5, SHE REPORT IQUID COMPOUN

EETING 3 PM EYES ONL DROSTEN

645 WEST FILLMORE ST

The address was the internet café, whose internet traffic had buried her for 2 weeks. The rest of the note meant nothing to her. She and Logan had worked on countless cases together and there seemed to be no way to narrow down the possibilities. Max knew that Logan would have gone through all their cases, looking for _Drosten, _but she was certain nothing would turn up. Even after all these years, Max could never let go of her Manticore training. She remembered every name in every case – she was sure there had never been a _Drosten _in their case files

The only _Drosten_ Max could even find on a map was a town 200 miles away, somewhere to the east of Seattle. Now, she was finally heading there, having exhausted every other possibility near the city. The city had finally finished work on the new metro-bus-link, christened with the decidedly dull name, the MOBIUS. The new public transit system had been ready to open prior to the Pulse, but the electronic meltdown had also dissolved funds for the sleek, new system. It had stood unused for 10 years. In the past couple of years, the city had finally settled down enough to reopen the system that allowed individual buses to pick up passengers all around the city, then link up at the terminal to become one long train. The beauty of the system was that it allowed the long train of buses to lock onto a high speed railway that could take you to San Francisco in 2 hours, and Billings in 6 hours.

Max fished the mini laptop out of her bag to check for any encrypted messages on the website Logan had set up for informants. One from Sebastian caught her eye.

"Finally managed to scan in the original note for you. Can't make heads or tails, but then again, my Spanish is rusty."

The original note was in Spanish? Max tried to remember if she had known that before.

TRANSGENETICO X5 EL DICE CHEMICOS LIQUIDOS

EETING 3 PM DROSTEN

Max's hands froze on the keyboard. That couldn't be right. She had just assumed that the words transcribed by Sebastian would be right, but there it was as plain as could be. She had been chasing the wrong leads all along.


	3. Ch3 The Pickup

Seattle, Washington

_Seattle, Washington._

Logan had to admit that Tim did make a valuable informant. In his position at the attorney general's office, he was privy to a wealth of information about the corruption that still stood in the way of the prosecution of numerous local thugs. He had also hinted at bigger fish, state officials who were being bought off. So far, however, Tim had danced around the bigger fish, saying that he needed more time. Logan, for his part, was getting worried the fish had been played too long on the line, that they might have swam away already. Did Tim really need more time, or was he less committed to Eyes Only than Logan thought?

Logan turned these thoughts over in his mind as he waited for Eva outside her kindergarten class. Ever since the Pulse, the school had been housed in an old house on an even older block. He threaded his way up the cracked sidewalk to the house.

Eva saw him through the window and burst out the door and down the steps.

"Daddy!" She planted a kiss on his cheek and proceeded to dance from one foot to the other, chatting excitedly about her day.

Logan and Max had long ago noticed that Eva could do things that other children could not do. When she first began to walk and climb, they found her climbing to the top of bookshelves and cabinets. Her daredevil abilities threatened to make her parents old before their time. Much to their relief, she seemed to have also acquired some amount wisdom along with her physical talents. She rarely showed off in front of her friends. In fact, she was often the one to slow down to wait for last kid on the walk. If Max thought that Eva had acquired this early sense of compassion by watching her father coping with his paraplegia, she kept it to herself. In any case, Eva rarely hurt herself, despite a degree of jumping and swinging that left her kindergarten teachers speechless.

Max and Logan debated about when they should tell Eva about her special genetically enhanced DNA, but in the end, Eva figured it out for herself. Her teacher had been showing the children the letters of the alphabet. She held up a poster from a local park, intending for the children to pick out the letter "d". Eva had shouted out "duck observation n ature walks." There was a stunned silence. Eva sensed that she had said something wrong and sat very still. She refused to repeat it and the class eventually moved on. She had burst into tears when Max picked her up.

"Why is there something wrong with me, Mommy?" she had asked tearfully. Little by little, Max and Logan had told her about her abilities, about her Mom, her uncle Alec, and their brothers and sisters. She had surprised them all by flushing with pleasure that she had something in common with her big, Uncle Joshua, whom they occasionally visited in Oregon.

One night, two weeks after Max had left, Alec let himself into the penthouse.

"You're crazy if you think I'm going to send Eva out on survivalist training with you," Logan had yelled, snatching the coffee cup back from Alec and slamming it into the sink.

"I'm not taking her to the shooting range! She just needs to know how to call for help, escape from a trunk, activate the GPS tracker, find her way to Bling's or Sebastian's – by herself."

"Escape from a trunk? Are you insane? Do you want to give her nightmares for a year? She's supposed to be learning how to be a normal five year-old. She's supposed to be learning how to ride a bike."

"Logan, it's not normal to be a daughter of an X5 and some lunatic journalist who insists on digging into the affairs of Seattle's most wanted list. You're the one who refuses any kind of security detail. And, in case you haven't noticed, Eva's been riding a bike since she was two!"

Alec had stormed off, slamming the front door so hard the walls shook. Two days later, Alec had come to the door to find Logan glaring defiantly up at him with Eva at his side.

"I'll pick you up in a couple of hours, Ev." He fixed Alec with a stare.

"Alec, if I hear about one nightmare, or whatever…I'm shutting down this insane project of yours." With that, he had spun his wheels and headed back down the hall.

That had been nearly three months ago. Logan had dropped Eva off with Alec each Sunday afternoon for their "training sessions." When Logan had casually asked what she did during the training, Eva had breezily replied, "I forgot, Dad." Of course, this was the same reply that Eva gave when he asked her what she did in school every day. Eventually, Logan gave up asking. He had to admit that, since she had been born, Alec had proven himself to be exceptionally responsible when it came to Eva's safety. So, he let it go.

Eva climbed into her car seat and buckled herself in. Logan drummed his fingers impatiently on the dash. He had arranged to drop her off with Original Cindy before going to the meet, but informant had just called to push up the time. The traffic looked horrendous, even by usual rush hour standards. Well, at least it was just a pickup, not really a meet. Hell, it wasn't even a live drop. He'd actually been notified a couple of days ago, but hadn't gotten around to pickup it up until today. Now, he'd been told that the opportunity would be gone if he didn't pick it up now. Eva had nodded off and he wasn't about to wake her now. He shifted into drive again and made his way slowly along quiet Green Street.

Logan had just pulled up to a stoplight as the last rays of sun had disappeared. Suddenly, a masked face appeared at his passenger window. The barrel of a gun, trained steadily at him, peeked out from one long sleeve.

"Don't make a sound. And open this door, now" the man hissed through the ski mask. Logan didn't dare glance toward the backseat, which had grown oddly quiet.


	4. Ch4 The Package

80 miles outside Seattle, Washington

_80 miles outside Seattle, Washington_

Max stuffed the laptop back into her backpack and reached up to pull the cord to stop the bus. She had to get off this bus right now.

"You may not exit the bus during the express portion of your trip," the automated voice told her. The individual buses had already linked onto the driverless high speed rail. Now, it was nonstop to the eastern border of the state three hours away. She hurried to her feet and made her way to the back of the bus, stepping into the tiny restroom. There was no way she was willing to wait three hours, now that she knew she had to get back to Seattle.

If Max had not been so preoccupied with her laptop earlier, she might have noticed the man with the hat pulled low over his face, four rows away. When she left her seat, the man rose too and followed her to the rear of the bus.

Max threw open the tiny window of the restroom. She looped the straps of her backpack firmly across her chest and swung herself out the window and onto the ladder leading onto the roof of the bus. Instantly, the screaming force of the wind threatened to tear her hands from the ladder. She pressed herself as close to the steel skin of the bus as she could and worked her way, hand over hand, toward the roof. Out of habit, she glanced back at the window. Max thought she recognized the now-hatless man, his hat having blown off once she opened the window. Had she seen him outside her building that morning? She couldn't think about that right now.

Max crept along the roof, the wind roaring in her ears. She clung to the smooth aerodynamic surface of the roof. She didn't look back to see if the man was trying to follow her up onto the roof. She half slid across the roof to the other side of the bus and slowly lowered herself over the edge, her toes desperately trying to find purchase along the narrow ledge above the window. Pulling a rope out of her pack, she looped one end around one of the antenna and the other around her ankle. She slowly swung her body so that she hung completely upside-down along the left side of the compartment. Gradually, she inched herself lower until she could see the underside of the bus.

What resembled a huge magnetic clamp attached the individual buses to the monorail beneath. In the shadow of the enormous monorail she could just make out the smaller robotic drones that ran slowly along the underside of the monorail, following the main cars. These remote-controlled care were used to repair and maintain the rail line. She had no choice. She couldn't climb back into the car at this point. If she stayed upside any longer, she'd ended horking, not a great prospect either. It was now or never. Taking a firm grip on the step sticking out from the side of the bus, she reached up to loosen the rope's hold on the antenna and swung herself down so that she was now right side up and hanging underneath the bus. She took a firm grip of the grappling hook on her rope and hurled it at the robotic car, hooked it neatly. The robotic car was traveling in the same direction as the bus, but only at half the speed. For a moment everything seemed to stand still. Then, she let go of the main train, the other rope went taut, and she was yanked off the train. Max just barely caught sight of the hatless man staring out at her from the window of the main train. She clambered up onto the roof of the repair car, about the size of a couch. Five minutes later, Max leaped lightly down from her perch on the repair car onto solid ground. In another five minutes, she was in a cab headed back to Seattle.

When she reached the outskirts of Seattle, Max threw a few bills at the cab driver and leaped out of the car. She ducked inside a coffee shop and sat down to regroup her thoughts. The hatless man had thrown her off. If the face in the train window was really someone tailing her, he had to know she had made some sort of revelation. She had get back to Eva and Logan. She had to make sure they were safe.

Max took out the scanned note again. How could she be so stupid not to look at the original note before this? With a nervous glance up the quiet street, she tucked her backpack between her feet and plunged a few quarters into the payphone.

"Hello"

"Alec, it's me, Max." I know it's been a long time, but I've really screwed up and I could really use some help"

The pause that hung in the air seemed interminable.

"Max, is it really you?"

"Alec, I know I've been off the radar for 4 months and…"

"And I hadn't talked to you for a couple months before that. I had been figuring that you'd give old Alec a call when you got around to it…or needed something."

"It's not that. Look, I know. I'm sorry."

"The truth is, Max, I guess I've been missing your sorry ass, so I am embarrassed to admit that I have occasionally visited your lame ass husband, and played hide-and-seek with that high-octane little daughter of yours.

Max grinned into the receiver. "Look, Alec, I do need your help. Do you remember the note the informant left? It turns out that Sebastian's team translated it wrong. Remember how we thought it mentioned me? Well, it mentions an X5 working with Logan, all right, but it was a "he". The note also mentioned "androstendione", I'm sure of it."

"You mean the note was about me all along? Not you? My job with the steelheads, those antennae-for-hair guys?"

"Yeah, remember when you were you dealing 'roids with the steelheads down by the dock warehouses? Could you have been dealing androstendione?"

"I know I was."

"Anyway, the note and all the other evidence points to the bad guys accidentally losing something along with the steroids. Maybe, they were smuggling something more valuable with the drugs. Somehow, they lost track of it. Maybe now, they want it back."

"But, Max, you know that Logan went back there by himself to snag the case files tying Pierpont Lempkin to the steelheads. He went to buy the stuff from the steelheads himself. They know what he looks like and who he is. I don't think they made a connection with Eyes Only, but it doesn't really matter. They know he's Logan Cale.

The steelheads AND Lempkin went down a few weeks after that. If Lempkin is out of jail now, or he had an even bigger boss, either one of them could be tracking down that lost shipment? After all this time, they've somehow picked up the scent again,. I'm sure Logan just threw the package into that storage locker of yours at Fogle Towers. I'm sure he never looked too carefully at it."

"Alec, they might have installed some kind of tracking device. If they know about you being X5, they might know about me. What if this last 4 months has just been a wild goose chase to get me out of the picture?"

"Naw, you would have known if you'd been tailed, Max."

"Well, that's the thing, Alec, I think I saw someone today…"


	5. Ch5 A Detour

Seattle, Washington

_Seattle, Washington._

"I said, open this damn door now. And keep your hands on the wheel," the man hissed again.

Logan's mind raced. He didn't dare glance toward the backseat, which had grown oddly quiet. His own gun was so close, right the glove compartment, but Eva was close too. He had never been as aware of her presence as he was now. He reached down slowly and hit the button to unlock the doors.

The masked man swung himself up into the seat, keeping the muzzle of the gun trained on Logan.

"I said keep you hands on the wheel."

"Look, I have to use my hands to drive or we're not going anywhere," Logan replied steadily, as he pressed the lever to move the car forward with the flow of traffic.

"What do you want? If it's money, my wallet is right here…" Logan continued.

"Shut up. Just keep driving and I'll let you know if I want anything else from you." The man leaned over and pressed the muzzle of the gun against Logan's ribs.

The man was a squat man, who looked nearly wider than he was tall. Logan had caught a brief glimpse of the meaty fingers which held the gun. They also sported several gold rings, included one with a large yellowish stone. He occasionally barked orders at Logan to turn one way or another, slowly leading them down to the waterfront across the bridge. Logan managed one quick glance in the rearview mirror. The car seat was empty. In fact, the built-in car seat had been flipped up, out of sight. Eva was nowhere to be seen.

The next time he made a lane change, Logan turned his head away from the man and the gun.

He dared a whisper, "Eva, I know you can hear me."

Logan turned back towards the road. He drove on. At the next lane change, he tried again.

"When I stop and get out of the car, you've got to run away. You know what to do, okay, honey. I love you" Logan whispered.

They were winding their way down the curving, steep roads toward the waterfront. They had reached the recreational docks near the university. In summer, the area was filled with people renting boats and enjoying the hot Seattle sun. It was October now and the buildings stood closed and silent. The squat man motioned Logan to stop the car behind one of the boathouses.

"Get out of the car," the man grunted.

Logan reached behind the man for his chair and wheels, assembled it deliberately and lowered himself into the seat. If the man was surprised by the chair, he didn't show it.

"He must have been following me, "Logan thought. "For how long? Had he seen Eva? He couldn't have known she was in the car or he would have already said something."

The man followed him out the driver door, keeping the gun trained on him. 

The masked man directed Logan to a rusted gate next to the building. His hand was on the latch, when he swore under his breath, "Hold on, I must have dropped the key in your car." He turned to head back towards the car.

At that moment, Logan grabbed the hand that held the gun, forcing it down. As the man backed away in surprise, Logan closed both hands over the man's gun hand, throwing his weight forward. He slid one arm down around the man's knees. Now they were both sliding to the ground. They hit the ground hard and Logan heaved himself forward, pulling himself up to the man's head. He had just wrapped him arms around the man's neck in a headlock when he heard the click of the gun and felt its bite against his chest. The squat man had pulled a small revolver out from some other pocket. Reluctantly, Logan released his grip. The man's mask had slid off and he yanked it back on. The man picked himself up off the ground, panting, and straightened up.

"You are going to pay for that," he spat out as he cuffed Logan hard with the butt of the gun and shoved his chair out of reach. He turned back toward the car once again. Keeping the gun leveled at Logan, he rummaged through the car and slammed the doors closed, including the passenger door, which he thought he must have left open the first time. Not finding what he was looking for, or anything else, for that matter, he returned to the gate, swearing under his breath. Logan breathed his own sigh of relief and silently wished Eva a quick getaway.

Logan's captor fished around in his pockets one more time and pulled out a key.

"Damn key was there all along," he muttered as he hobbled back to the gate. He shoved the muzzle of the gun roughly against Logan's shoulder.

"Wheelchair guy like you. I thought you were going to behave yourself. Maybe I should just make you get up and walk the rest of the way," the man growled.

"You'd be waiting a long time," Logan said quietly. When Logan remained sitting on the cold ground, the man reluctantly hooked the chair with his foot and pushed it toward Logan. Grudgingly, Logan heaved himself back into the chair and pushed through the gate.

The squat man shoved Logan the last few feet into a small office in the corner of the abandoned boathouse. The walls of the boathouse stretched up into the darkness and Logan could just make out the catwalks and sliding ladders that enabled the staff to reach boats suspended from the higher racks when the boathouse was full. The office served only to provide a little separation from the activity of the boathouse. Its walls only reached up about seven feet. The office had no ceiling, so that the catwalks and upper storage areas looked down into the office directly. The boathouse was shrouded in darkness.

"You're staying in here until the boss comes."

"Who's your boss and what does he want with me anyway?"

"I think you'll find out soon enough who he is. I have no idea what he wants with you. Although, so far, you're a lot more trouble than you're worth," he said.

"All I know is that the boss has more firepower lined up outside this building for you than I've seen in a long time. You must have really pissed him off."

Slapping some duct tape across Logan's mouth, the masked man tied Logan's hands roughly behind him. He tipped Logan out of the chair and shoved him up against one wall. He pushed the chair to the other side of the tiny room.

"That should keep you here for a while."

The concrete boathouse floor felt icy cold and solid under Logan's cheek. With his arms tied behind his back, there was no way that he could raise himself into a sitting position. His shoulder ached vaguely, where he had hit the ground earlier. The relief he had felt when he realized that Eva had escaped from the car had been short-lived. Max was going to kill him. He had just let their five year-old daughter walk away alone into the city.

He tried to force his mind back to his current situation, but his mind kept returning to Eva. If only he could have sent a message to Sebastian or Alec, but there had been no time. He could only hope that Eva was her mother's daughter.


	6. Ch6 A Lesson Learned

_Near the University of Washington waterfront, Lake Washington, Seattle_

Fortunately for Eva, she possessed a good deal of both her father's resourcefulness and her mother's toughness. Her feet flew across the ground as she ran away from the car. It was dark already and the quiet buildings loomed up all around her. Gradually, she got farther and farther away from the waterfront and her footsteps slowed. Her dad had taught her how to use a cell phone and a payphone, but she had neither. All she had was her jacket. Eventually, the waterfront buildings gave way to houses. Still, Eva kept walking. Eva scanned every block, as her Uncle Alec had instructed, but she couldn't find what she needed.

As the night grew darker, the cold air pressed in around Eva. In the front yard of one of the houses, she spied a few tricycles and a wooden playhouse. Exhausted and cold, she crawled into the playhouse. She curled up on the floor and crawled under an old blanket, abandoned months ago. In a few minutes, she was asleep.

Eva awoke several hours later. It was early morning now. The air smelled of damp grass as it always did in the mornings. Soon, the car exhaust and food smells would take over, but for now, Seattle still smelled fresh and hopeful. Eva reached a hand inside her pocket to check its contents again, a couple of pretzels, her school ID card, and a smooth pebble she had found yesterday on the playground.

Eva bit her lip as she thought of her dad, alone with that evil-looking man. She closed her eyes, wishing her mom would appear before her, to rescue her. Slowly, she opened one eye and looked up at the ceiling of the wooden playhouse where she had spent the night.

No mom. But, she would try that trick again later, she thought. She munched the stray pretzels and rubbed her cold hands together.

Eventually, Eva stood up. Her dad was counting on her. She brushed off her clothes and set off resolutely. She walked past the first five or six blocks, seeing some stores and restaurants replacing the rows of houses. The sidewalks quickly filled with commuters walking to work and other schoolchildren with backpacks. Eva ran over her Uncle Alec's instructions in her mind. Wrapping her jacked a little tighter around her body, Eva tried to look more like a child walking to school, instead of a kid wandering around the city without her parents.

Eva turned her mind to the task at hand. Uncle Alec had told her how to find her way home. Now, if she could only find what she was looking for. She crossed the street carefully, following right behind another girl and her mother.

There it was.

It looked all right. It was the same kind of little booth with the computer screen and the buttons like a phone. And the sign looked right. It had the blue symbol Uncle Alec had told her to find with the three letters, A-T-M. Eva pulled the school ID card out of her pocket, and, standing on tiptoe, pushed it into the slot. She looked at the keypad and quickly started pressing the numbers. Heart pounding, she kept pushing them. Across the screen, words were flashing and the automated voice said, "Incorrect PIN number, please try again." The machine slid the car out again. Eva pushed it back in.

Eva pressed her lips together and started pushing the buttons again. The machine spit the card out again. She tapped it back in and continued pressing.

"Hey, little girl, the ATM is not a toy, stop playing with the keypad!" a woman shouted, just as the words and voice flashed for the third time and final time.

"Sorry, your correct PIN number was not received. Please contact your bank to retrieve your automated teller machine card." The machine made a whirring sound and sucked the card in one last time. Eva's school ID card slid down into the inner workings of the teller machine. Deep inside, a sensor scanned the card, but instead of activating a security hold on someone's account, the scanner sent a signal across town to a small research facility in Bellevue. The message informed the owner of the facility, a Sebastian Montague, that Eva's card had just been used at an ATM in the university district.


	7. Ch7 An Unlucky Find

_Boathouse near the university waterfront, Lake Washington, Seattle_

Logan had lain on the concrete floor for only twenty minutes when he heard footsteps echoing across it. A pair of hands hauled him up roughly and pushed him up against the wall.

"Boss wants you awake and listening," came a hoarse whisper.

A voice, amplified and distorted, came over a loudspeaker.

"Logan Cale, how nice of you to join us. You've been a hard man to track down, although I have to admit that I never thought I was looking for a guy in a real wheelchair. When Lempkin told me to look for a cripple, I always laughed it off as a fake. Besides you can never trust those Steelies anyway. Some of that grey matter's been replaced by steel too, if you ask me."

The voice paused.

"You have something that belongs to me and I want it back."

"Now," the voice reverberated in the silence.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Logan shouted to the air. "You drag a guy out of his car in the middle of the night, scaring him out of his mind…"

"Do not try to bullshit me! You're the one who went down to the docks to buy 'roids from those freakshow Steelheads seven years ago. I had a nice scheme going. Their merchandise made a nice little disguise for mine. Until they lost one of my shipments handing off some vials to you. I thought they were holding out on me so I squeezed those pretty metal heads till I got some answers. But after I went through a couple and they were still singing the same tune, I figured they had to be telling the stupid truth – that they sold you the vials with my stuff _by accident._

"The next thing I know, the Steelheads _and_ Lempkin get hauled off to the state pen after some "tell-all" expose by none other than Eyes Only. Then, I'm left to find figure it out on my own."

"Eyes Only. Now there's someone I'd like to get my hands on. Of course, I've been a lot smarter than Lempkin. I've managed to avoid being nailed directly by Eyes Only, so far. But, he's ruined some excellent _arrangements_ and cost me a lot of money."

"Finally, my luck turned. One of the harmless little weasels on my payroll stumbled onto _you_ while looking for Eyes Only. I started thinking about the fact that Lempkin was put away only a few months after you showed up."

"You should feel flattered, Mr. Cale. Your connection to Eyes Only is probably the only thing that might interest me more than getting my merchandise back."

"You lead me to Eyes Only and I might spare your life. Now, where is he?"

Logan's mind spun. His heart had skipped a beat at the mention of Eyes Only. It stung more deeply than he would admit that his life might be spared because this crook thought a wheelchair-bound cripple could never be Eyes Only himself.

"Small favors," he thought ironically.

Who was this guy? The Steelhead mission? His mind went back to the mission with Alec so long ago. Alec had given him info on the Steelheads selling steroids, which had turned out to be a scheme for smuggling all kinds of other drugs. The memory came back vividly. Max had been out of town, so he had gone himself to make the buy and to search their building. One of the Steelheads had shown up unexpectedly and they had struggled in the alley. Somehow, Logan had escaped.

"Look," Logan spoke again to the air. "I don't know anything about Eyes Only, but I think I remember buying the steroids from those metal heads. If you think there was something else in those vials, I might be able to track them down for you."

"I'm not stupid, you know. Eyes Only is a much bigger jackpot than a couple of shipments. You tell me how to find him or you die. It's really very simple," the voice intoned.

"You gotta admit, you really want your stuff back," Logan offered again, wondering, all the while, what _the stuff _was."

Perhaps he imagined it, but Logan thought he could hear the man behind the voice pausing, thinking.

The squat man beside him spoke into a com link in his ear, "I really don't know if he's the real deal. The chair? I've dumped him out of it more than a couple of times already. Guess he's a pretty good faker."

Logan's captor listened to the comlink response and signed off

The man brought the wheelchair over to Logan and dragged him into it. He cut the tape from Logan's wrist, then taped them together again behind the back of the chair. He then proceeded to push him back out of the office into the alley behind the boathouse.

Abruptly, Logan was left alone. Whereas the boathouse had been pitch black, the alley was bathed in moonlight. The empty windows of waterfront apartments stared down at him sitting in the middle of the bare patch of dirt. Although the boathouses were sometimes used by locals, the pricier vacation rentals had been largely abandoned after the Pulse. The wind whistled down the tunnel created by the buildings, stirring up dust clouds. There was a dark stain on the concrete next to him. Logan glanced up at the buildings that would muffle any sound that came from the alley. Logan knew why they had brought him out to the alley.


	8. Ch Eyes Only Full Stop

_80 miles outside Seattle, Washington_

"Are you kidding me, Max? Alec continued, "You would have known if you were being tailed."

"You heard me Alec, I think I _was_ being tailed. I was climbing onto the roof of the train, and I thought I saw this guy following me."

"Roof of a train? Yeah, that's a real low profile move, Max."

"Oh, shut up already. Didn't I start this conversation by saying I'd done something stupid? Are you going to help me or not?"

"Why are you asking me anyway?" Alec paused. "I get it. Communication with Sebastian might have been compromised, since that's probably how they started tailing you. _And,_ you don't want to lead them back to Logan and Eva if they don't already know you're back in Seattle."

"That's just great," he continued, "Other brothers and sisters remember old song lyrics and cereal commercials from their childhood, and we have this."

"Alec, I need you to tell Logan and Eva to get to the safe house. Tell Logan about the Steelhead mission, okay? He'll know what to do. Give Sebastian a call too. I'll call you back in an hour."

Now, that she was back in Seattle, Max desperately wanted to see Logan and Eva. She hung up the payphone and walked quickly toward the cluster of stores around the corner. She had left the safe house that morning with the laptop and a few things stashed in her bag. Now, she trolled the store, picking up a wig, some sunglasses, and a change of clothes. Walking by the appliances section, she glanced up at the bank of televisions just as the familiar red, white and blue logo flashed on the screen.

"Police tonight are surveying a grisly scene. It appears that death may have finally caught up with the elusive Eyes Only."

The camera panned across a narrow alley. Someone had spray painted the red, white and blue stripes down the length of it. In the center, two eyes stared out. Except, where the other eye should have been, lay something else. At first glance, it looked strange. It didn't look like the outline of a body.

"So far, no one is claiming responsibility for the attack," the broadcaster's voice continued.

It was a wheelchair. The chair had been tipped on its side. A covered body lay sprawled next to it. Even from the vantage point of the camera's view, Max could see that the walls and the chair were riddled with bullet holes. The spreading pool of blood mingled with the wet paint around the body.

"If we are to believe this execution-style murder, it appears that Eyes Only, the controversial figure who crusaded against corruption and crime, may have been confined to a wheelchair. Based on the condition of the body, definitive identification of the man believed to be Eyes Only may have to wait for forensic examination.

Max's world closed in. All the sounds around her fell away, except her wildly beating heart. For a moment, all she could think was, "Logan hates that phrase 'confined to a wheelchair.'" Logan. That couldn't be Logan. He was too careful. He planned for every contingency.

Max wheeled around and headed out the door. Pulling out her cell phone, she started to dial Alec's number.

"But what about Eva?" she thought. She couldn't chance leading anyone back to Eva. Tossing the phone the trash, ran to find another pay phone.

Alec picked up on the first ring.

"I thought you were going to give me an hour," he began.

"Alec, turn on your T.V.," Max choked out.

Max heard the sound of Alec rummaging with around for the remote. Then, the T.V. came one. Alec was silent for a moment. Then, Max heard him breathe in sharply.

"Max," Alec said evenly, "I tried to call Logan at all his numbers. No one is answering. Eva isn't at the preschool either. Sebastian isn't answering either. Where are you Max? I'll come and get you."

"No. I'll meet you at Sebastian's," barked Max, "keep trying Logan."

Her instructions to Alec came out like orders. But even switching to combat mode didn't quell the panic that was rising in her chest.


	9. Ch9 Hiding in Plain Sight

_Near the University of Washington waterfront, Lake Washington, Seattle_

Eva had watched her I.D. card slide into the ATM and walked a few steps to the next store, out of earshot of the woman in line yelling at her to stop playing with the machine. Uncle Alec had been very clear about how to put the card in, but he had been less clear about what to do afterwards. A chill wind whipped the leaves on the ground until they danced. It was October, after all, and the long rains of the Seattle winter were just around the corner. Still, there were a few dry days left and the local merchants still put their wares out on tables on the sidewalks, hoping that passersby might be tempted by the odd mixture of bright summer clothes, coats, candles and knick-knacks for sale. Reaching out to touch the soft dresses, Eva studied the round rack full of long dresses and coats, next to the wall.

"Where is that kid?" muttered the woman who had been waiting for the ATM. "I should have reported her to the bank manager."

The woman glanced up and down the sidewalk, but the little girl in the yellow jacket had vanished. Shrugging, she hitched her purse higher onto her shoulder and turned to walk back to the bus stop.

Standing inside the round clothes rack, with the dresses and long wool coats forming the walls of her makeshift hideout, Eva breathed a sigh of relief. Reaching up on tiptoe, she carefully pulled one of the long wool coats off the hanger. Eva did her best to brush off a neat circle of sidewalk before laying the long tail of the coat down. After all, it wouldn't be right to make the coat dirty if she was only borrowing it. Eva pulled the collar of the coat up over her head, wrapping the rest around her body. Leaning against the wall, she sat down carefully to wait. Inside the warm coat, the chill slowly left Eva's body and she fell asleep at last.

An hour later, a white van drove slowly toward the bank and stopped in front of it. A tall man stepped out of the van. He strolled slowly past the ATM, glancing nervously up and down the block as if he were looking for something, then doubled back heading right for the racks of clothes on the sidewalk.


	10. Ch10 The Bunker

_Bellevue, Sebastian's Research Facility and Home_

Max and Alec stood outside Sebastian's research facility checking their equipment. It had been a long time since their last real mission together.

"Twenty-seven months, to be exact," thought Alec. He peered at Max from under the brim of his cap. Her face looked tense and drawn. Alec rarely had a chance to steal a long look at Max. Now, she caught him looking at her.

"What's the problem, bro?" Max snapped.

"Nothing," Alec shrugged. But he knew Max. And he knew that Max was scared. Alec had seen that Eyes Only footage too and he couldn't blame Max for the shake in her voice.

Alec and Max were brother and sister in that odd way that can only exist for siblings who shared no common childhood and no common parents, who only became acquainted as adults. Bearing their own separate scars courtesy of Manticore, Max and Alec could have easily parted ways, but the events of Terminal City and the freeing of the other transgenics had bonded them together.

Alec had thought himself free of such childish notions as loyalty and indebtedness, but something kept him coming back to Fogle Towers even after Terminal City had dissolved. Occasionally, Logan had an Eyes Only job for him or Max would ask him for help. Alec and Logan could not have been more different. Damn, that crazy cyber guy did sort of grow on you like a parasite. In a purely Manticore sense, he really was ridiculous. He had thrown away money, when he still had it, just bring down crooks. Wasn't that somebody else's job? Still, Logan had never refused a request for help from Alec. And he _had_ defended all the transgenics, stayed with them in Terminal City. He, Alec, for one, was not likely to forget that.

And, of course, there was Eva. When she was born, Alec had essentially ignored her, as he ignored anyone not old enough to down a beer with him. But for some reason, that kid had taken a liking to him.

"Bye, Dad. I'm running away. I'm going with Uncle Alec," Eva had said stoutly one day when she was three years old. She had picked up her backpack, grabbed Alec's hand and marched out the door. Well, that was that. Alec _had_ to stick around from then on. Who else would save Eva from that high-minded, idealistic father of hers?

"Hey, are you hung over or something?" Max's sharp words brought him back to the present.

"What? No. Let's just get on with it."

All seemed quiet, but Max and Alec still approached the Sebastians's research buildings cautiously. The low-slung buildings were painted a dull slate gray that blended into the dark shadows of the trees. Originally built during the technology boom of the 1990's, they sold for a song to a shipping company which converted it to the Bellevue Research Facility. The facility was reported to conduct small-scale robotics projects of no particular consequence. Deeper digging would have revealed that the facility was actually owned by a man who was known to walk just north of the line between legal and illegal. Even deeper digging might have revealed that the man didn't walk at all. But Sebastian worked hard to make sure no one dug that deep.

It was ten o'clock in the morning. Sebastian's van was still warm, but that was hardly significant. Max had not known Sebastian to leave the compound, although he frequently sent his staff out on errands in the van. Max and Alec entered through service door and rode the elevator up to the main floor.

Sebastian's living quarters were stark. Gray concrete floors ran the length of the rooms. Except for a few stray pieces of furniture the floors were bare. His one indulgence seemed to be large paintings which adorned the walls. In spite of herself, Max smiled when she recognized one of Joshua's canvases

Sebastian's work area centered on a small room crammed with monitors, screens, hard drives, and other equipment. Max and Alec crept slowly into the room, but found only Sebastian sitting alone in his mechanized chair, in front of the panel of screens.

"Sebastian, did you see the news? I looked at the original message you sent me and it led me back here to Seattle, but before I had a chance to make a move, I saw the T.V. report..." Max couldn't finish.

"I tried to reach Logan and Eva's not at the school," Alec continued, "You weren't picking up, either."

Sebastian slowly turned to face them. "I had a very important errand to run…" Sebastian's mechanized voice started to began slowly.

"But, Sebastian," Max interrupted, "Where could you have possibly gone? You never leave the compound. Besides, you knew we would be coming after you heard the news."

"As I said…" the voice synthesizer started.

"Mommy?" A small figure flew across the room and launched itself at Max.

"Eva is here," Sebastian's mechanized voice understated.

Eva _was_ here. Max looked down at Eva's upturned face, her eyes so startlingly like Logan's. Max sank to her knees, clasping Eva to her chest, relief washing over her. Eva pushed herself back to look into her mother's face.

"I did it, Mom. And I put the card in just like you said, Uncle Alec," Eva trilled, turning toward her uncle. "Uncle Sebastian came to pick me up in the van."

"You did? You left the compound to pick her up yourself?" Max asked incredulously, turning to Sebastian.

"We were about to pull away from the bank, when _this_ little one comes flying out of a rack of clothes, no less, and comes running up to the van," said Sebastian's assistant, who had been standing quietly in the corner for several minutes.

"_Wait, wait for me!" Eva had shouted, pounding her small fists on the side of the van. The van door, which read Bellevue Research Facility, slid open smoothly to reveal a motorized wheelchair strapped firmly into place. Before Sebastian even had time to react, Eva had thrown herself into his lap, squeezing him tightly with all of her five-year old strength. _

"_Sebastian," she breathed, not letting go of his waist, "I knew you'd come."_

_Sebastian's longtime driver chuckled to himself as he pressed the button to close the door and pulled back into traffic. _

"_Well, I didn't think I'd live to see you speechless," the driver laughed._

_Sebastian's voice synthesizer crackled, "Why don't you stick to driving."_

_Shaking his head and laughing again, the driver glanced back in his rearview mirror to see Eva firmly planted in Sebastian's lap and a blush creeping onto Sebastian's cheeks. _

"George drove. I sat. Precious cargo required extra supervision." As always, Sebastian's voice betrayed nothing, but his face colored noticeably.

It was Max's turn to throw her arms around Sebastian's neck, causing him to blush for the second time that day.

Fiftenn minutes later, Max, Alec and Sebastian huddled around the array of computers in Sebastian "command center." Max had prodded Eva to repeat the story of the carjacking twice more, trying to glean any detail that might prove the news reports wrong.

"Mom, I already told you everything. Dad says you just have to be patient and he will be there soon. That what he tells me when I'm waiting for him at school," Eva yawned.

Max could only nod, blinking back tears. She settled Eva on a couch to sleep, tucking the blanket around her. Wordlessly, she turned back to the video footage.

Another hour later, the three figures still sat silently in front of the computer screens. They had managed to patch into the video feed from the various news reports. The center monitor showed the results of their work, an enlarged still shot of an upturned wheelchair, only partly covered by a blue tarp, cops surrounding the site. One shoe protruded from the drape, its smooth unused sole visible. The underside of the chair clearly showed a worn sticker.

"Can we get a clearer shot of that sticker?" Alec turned to Sebastian.

"We don't need a clearer shot. It's a surfing logo." Long ago, Logan had slapped the sticker on his chair as it lay beside them on the beach.

"He got it at the beach in Oregon." Logan had been so tickled that day, testing his ability to catch waves lying down, riding them like the other surfers.

"I've got to check on Eva," Max stood up abruptly.

Sebastian and Alec stared at the screen silently, having run out of things to say long ago The minutes ticked by.

With a start, Alec swore to himself and pushed his chair back. He ran to the room where Eva slept quietly. A note lay on the table next to her.

_Alec & S_

_I have to go to that boathouse. You have to keep Eva safe. _

_Max._

Max was gone.


	11. Ch11 Eyes Only Cornered

_16 hours earlier_

_Boathouse near the university waterfront, Lake Washington, Seattle_

The moon had begun to set and darkness crept into the alley. Time passed slowly. Logan shivered, unable to move much with his hands secured behind the chair. Then, over the wind, he noticed a scraping sound coming from the far end of the alley. As the sound came closer, Logan thought he could make out someone or something moving towards him from the far end of the alley, away from the boathouse door.

"Logan," came the faint whisper.

Logan's old classmate from Yale, his new informant, walked haltingly toward Logan and fell to his knees. It was Tim Young, his face caked in dirt and sweat streaked.

"I've finally found you, I should have known they would bring you here," he whispered, his breath coming in gasps as he emerged from the shadows.

Hands still tied, Logan glanced up and down the alley, but no one else was there.

"Tim? What are you doing here? You need to get out of here. I don't know how you got mixed up in this, but you need to go now."

"No, Logan. I'm so sorry, Logan. You're the one mixed up in this. I'm the reason you're here. I'm so sorry," Tim rushed on. He continued on, the words tumbling out faster now. "But they were holding my family hostage. They said I would never see them again if I didn't help them. I thought it would just be a matter of passing on a little information to an Eyes Only contact. I made good bait, they said. I never thought I'd recognize my contact. I never thought it would be you. I never thought Logan Cale would _be_ Eyes Only," Tim's eyes looked wildly at Logan.

Logan could only stare back.

"After I met with you that day in the diner, I knew you weren't just a contact. Hell, I knew you'd worked with Nathan Herrero at the Pacific FP, like Eyes Only had mentioned in the hack. I knew your style. You'd helped me get my first job at Yale. I knew those eyes."

"You told this scumbag I was Eyes Only?" Now there was steel in Logan's voice.

"No, of course not. But somehow he figured out that we had known each other and he suspected you were connected to Eyes Only. He wanted any details about your personal life, but I told him that I hadn't seen you in years…that I didn't even know about the…chair. I didn't tell him anything, I swear. He slammed me around for a while, but I didn't tell him anything," his voice became desperate now. In the moonlight, Logan could now see that Tim's face was cut and bruised. His left arm seemed to hang limply at his side.

"So if you didn't tell him, maybe he still thinks I'm an informant. He wants me to lead him back to Eyes Only," Logan began.

Tim shook his head. "I didn't have to tell him. I think he figured out that you were Eyes Only. Maybe it was your Free Press connection? I don't know. The only thing he couldn't wrap his head around was the fact that you were in this wheelchair. Now he's just toying with you. People who get brought to this alley don't come back."

Logan's voice was harsh. "So what are you doing here?"

"I came back to warn you, but I'm too late." Tim's voice had dropped to a whisper, "They left me to die in a warehouse across the lake, after I'd done everything they asked. My family…they're gone. He took them anyway," Tim sobbed. "I'm so sorry, Logan. Maybe I can still help you escape," Tim reached around the back of Logan's chair and cut away the tape from his hands.

Suddenly, one of the doors leading to the alley burst open. The squat man strode quickly toward Logan, a semi-automatic raised. Tim was still partially hidden by Logan's chair.

"Let's get this over with," the man snarled, pointing the weapon at Logan.

Out of the corner of his eye, Logan saw the gleam of Tim's gun as he drew it shakily from his coat. As Tim rose up beside him, both men fired. Shots rang out in the narrow alley. Then, there was silence.

Tim lay sprawled on the ground at Logan's feet. His breathing came in ragged gasps. He looked down at the gun in his hand and flung it into the darkness. A pool of red was slowly spreading under his chest.

"I'm sorry I gave you up, Logan. You've done so much for Seattle, for so many people. I guess it's too late to say sorry."

"No, Tim. I don't think it's too late to say sorry" But it was too late to save the informant's life. Logan tried to staunch the flow of blood, but he had lost too much. Tim lay still and did not move again.

Logan's mind spun. What had just happened? He had been brought here as a result of one informant's betrayal. Now, his captor had come back to the alley to finish him off, but had ended up in getting killed in a shootout with a man who wasn't even supposed to be here. In the end, Tim had returned to try to save Eyes Only, but had only gotten himself killed. In a few minutes, the other men would be coming through that door if their leader didn't return soon.

Logan had his hands free now and he had a gun, but how far could he get in ten minutes? Besides, his anonymity was his most valuable shield to protect Eyes Only and Max and Eva. Even though the other men hadn't seen his face, they knew about the chair and it wouldn't be too hard to track down Eyes Only even if he escaped somehow.

Unless…there was some way to stop them from searching, or, at least, buy himself a little more time. Logan stared down at the body at his feet, its outline thrown up in relief against the bare concrete. He thought of Eva, who he hoped was speeding away from him at that moment. He thought of his Max. He had to try.

Locking his brakes, he slid onto the ground next to the Tim's still body. He tugged off his own shoes, with their smooth, clean soles and swapped them with Tim's shoes. Moving around to Tim's head, he yanked the shirt and jacket off the body. Teeth chattering, he stripped off his own sweater and jacket and maneuvered them onto the body.

How long had it been since the shots had been fired? The goons would be back soon if their leader didn't emerge. Logan pulled on Tim's parka, shoving the bloody shirt into the pocket. Arms working steadily, Logan moved himself around to Tim's feet. He tilted his wheelchair onto its back next to the body. Grunting with effort, he hoisted the Tim's legs up as high as he could and slid the chair underneath them. He moved himself back behind the chair, locking the brakes. Grabbing the back of the chair, he hoisted it off the ground. For a moment, he thought the chair and the body would both come crashing down, then momentum took over and the chair was upright.

Tim's lifeless body now sat in the wheelchair, wearing Logan's clothes. The other men hadn't seen his face clearly. As far as they knew, there was only one man in a wheelchair, sitting in the alley awaiting his fate.

How many minutes had passed? Feeling more and more vulnerable, he gathered up Tim's gun and the other man's semi-automatic and pulled himself backwards away from the door to the boathouse, through which he expected to men to emerge any moment.

Logan could hear the voices of the men deep in the boathouse. The building on the other side of the alley was even older than the boathouse. It had old-fashioned trash chutes leading from the upper floors to the ground floor. Logan scooted himself as quickly as he could to the nearest trash chute door, directly across from the door to the boathouse. The metal door measured about three feet square, with the lower edge a couple of feet off the ground. Pulling his feet and legs around, out of the way, he nudged his hips as close as he could to the wall. Opening the small door and reaching into the dark opening, he fumbled for some sort of handhold between the bricks to drag himself in. Wedging his fingers into the cracks and grabbing hold of the edge of the door, he heaved his head and shoulders into the yawning opening. Using every once of leverage he could muster, he hauled himself into the opening. He inched himself gradually into the chute. When he was reasonably sure that his feet had cleared the opening, he rolled onto his back. Grabbing onto the knees of his pants, he dragged his legs toward him. Tucking them as close as he could, he rolled awkwardly, swinging around so that his head now faced out.

Logan's head was now just inside the tunnel of the trash chute. He closed his hand around the semi automatic next to him. The moon had set and the alley was dark again. Logan cracked open the door of the trash chute and trained the gun on the boathouse door directly opposite him. Tim's body in the chair sat directly in front of Logan, just a few feet away. Logan slid the safety off the gun.

In the dim light, he saw one of the men step cautiously into the alley. It was now or never.

Logan opened fire, spraying the wall next to the man with bullets.

"What the hell is going on out there?" The man ducked back into the boathouse. Logan heard the muffled shouts of the men inside.

"Didn't Vann go out there to finish him off?"

"I don't know. It's pitch black out there, but all I see is Vann on the ground and that idiot in the wheelchair trying to blow my head off. There isn't going to anything left of him when I'm done with him," the man cursed.

In few seconds, Logan heard the voices of reinforcements returning. Logan said a silent apology to Tim. Still hidden in shadow, he opened fire through the crack in the door. Livid now, his captors let loose with all full fury of their arsenal, firing from windows and not even bothering to enter the alley now. The wheelchair with the body in it spun wildly under a hail of bullets. Logan pulled the metal door of the trash chute closed. The men continued for a solid minute, emptying their weapons. Finally, the shots died down amid the whoops and yells of the men. Logan laid the gun down, checked the latch on the door. Then, he let out the breath he hadn't realized he had been holding.


	12. Ch12 Paint Job

_**Here's my most recent update. I'm trying to complete it, but I just wanted to post these chapters first since you've been waiting such a long time. Reviews of all kinds, I can take it!**_

_Boathouse near the university waterfront, Lake Washington, Seattle, 11 PM_

Within a few minutes, voices returned to the alley. There seemed to be only a few men, shuffling around in the narrow space. Through the thick metal door, Logan could hear only snatches of words echoing off the brick walls.

"Nice paint job. The eyes look just like they do on T.V. Boss says to hurry up. We're packing and moving out."

"What about Vann's body?"

"That's coming too. Can't take a chance it'll lead back to us. Now, hurry up. Let's get out of here."

"Hard to believe this wheelchair guy was the one who put all those operations out of business. Personally, I'm kinda impressed"

"Well, impressing an idiot ain't that hard. Would you just shut up so we can get going? Any more talking and I'll make sure you get 'accidentally' left behind. Now move your ass."

Logan swallowed. It looked like they had bought his little switch. Of course, why not? They had no idea that Tim had appeared from nowhere. Only Vann had actually seen Logan up close. He wasn't sure if their big boss, whoever he was, had ever seen Logan or even seen pictures of him. After what seemed to be hours, the men left.

Silence settled on the alley again.


	13. Ch 13 False Start

_The Boathouse Alley_ _– 6 AM_

It had to be close to morning now. Logan guessed that he had arrived at the boathouse at about six o'clock the night before. Usually, the good citizens of Seattle left the waterfront alone at night, but the hail of gunfire would have roused even the sleepiest neighbor. The police would be here soon. The nightmare would be over soon and he could make sure Eva was all right.

Logan reached out for the handle of the small metal door and pushed open the door slowly. At first, Logan noticed only the heady smell of fresh paint. The pre-dawn light cast only a faint light over the alley, but it was enough for Logan to make out the grisly scene. The overturned wheelchair lay with Tim's body sprawled awkwardly beside it. Thick red and blue stripes had been painted on the ground, with one eye sketched in white. Where the other eye should have been, the body lay. Unbidden, the familiar message came into his head.

"This is a streaming freedom video bulletin. The cable hack will last exactly sixty seconds"

Someone with a dubious sense of humor had scrawled the next line, "It cannot be…" above the stripes.

If there had been any doubt that this maniac wanted to destroy Eyes Only, the doubt had been banished by the scene in front of him. It would be clear to the people that Eyes Only had been brutally murdered, his body left as a sign that their protector was gone. Logan gripped the metal door, intending to push himself out of the narrow chute, but the sight before him made him hesitate.

Yeah, sure. If he climbed out of this tunnel into the waiting arms of the police, the nightmare would be over…for now. But the ruse would be up. When the police saw him and realized he was the real owner of the wheelchair, it would be inevitable that they'd connect him to Eyes Only. Vann's boss would eventually figure out that he was still alive. Even though the Seattle PD had cleaned itself up over the past few years, there were still plenty of crooked cops who didn't necessarily appreciate Eyes Only's good deeds. Somehow, Vann's boss would find out he'd been played. And he didn't seem to be the sort of man who appreciated being fooled

Should he let the switch play itself out a little while longer? Maybe he could buy a little more time for Eyes Only and for Max and Eva. He just wished he could get a message to Cindy or Alec or Sebastian. The news hover drones would be here soon. Maybe even Max would see a report. How was he going to contact them?

In the distance, he could hear police sirens. It was now or never.

"Damn." Logan pulled his head back into the tunnel. He yanked the door shut a second time as the sirens drew closer. Logan leaned his forehead against the cold metal door. "Damn, I could almost feel that hot shower I had coming."

He backed himself deeper into the tunnel, pulling his jacket over his head. Just as the first cop cars pulled up, a light drizzle began to fall. Logan settled in for a long day of waiting.

The first cops to respond to the anonymous tip had strolled up casually. They were brought up short by the apparent murder scene of the great Eyes Only. Within a half hour, a dozen investigators and detectives descended on the alley, collecting evidence. The medical examiner knelt next to the body reverently.

"Do you think this is the real Eyes Only?" the nearest detective asked.

"Looks to be about the right age, but I don't even think we'll be able to identify him without dental records. Whoever gunned him down did it at close range and didn't leave us too much to go on. This chair's seen a lot of use, so he's been in it for a while anyway," the doctor sighed.

Logan could only hear snippets of the conversation through the metal door. After a while, the whine of the hover drones announced the arrival of the media. The rain fell steadily and the welcome draft of fresh air which blew in around the door became a chill wind. Logan felt his eyelids drooping and he drifted into a restless sleep.


	14. Ch 14 A Cautious Approach

_The Area outside the Waterfront_- _4 P.M. _

A hundred yards away, Max stole her way closer to the boathouse. There was really no need for secrecy. After the news bulletin had gone out, a crowd had started to gather at the waterfront. For nearly a decade, Eyes Only had been a hero to the city of Seattle. At first, there had been cable hacks that exposed corruption and crime. Then, as the city's infrastructure had recovered from the Pulse, Eyes Only had interrupted internet web casts too. In recent years, the broadcasts had come less frequently, but had tackled bigger targets. Only last month, construction a harbor tunnel had been halted when Eyes Only had revealed that funds were being siphoned away and the theft hidden by the use unsafe building materials.

The police had strung yellow tape around the crime scene, but thirty or forty people pressed forward trying to peer into the alley. Heart pounding, Max stepped closer. Max hadn't needed the close ups of the crime scene photos to identify Logan's chair. She had known it was Logan's at a glance.

Max had helped him to pick it out that night after the leap off the Steinlitz. Logan had joked about needing a chair with jet thrusters, but when he had started to close up the catalog, Max had shyly pulled up a chair and opened up the website again. Thinking back to that night, maybe it had been her way of showing that the chair was a necessary and important tool in Logan's life, and that she wanted to be a part of that life too. They had shared the briefest of moments together and Logan had ended up with the sleek black model he had kept all these years.

Back then, their relationship had consisted only of those brief moments, shoehorned in between car chases and leaps from buildings. Years later, Logan had teased that he had ended up with the wrong footrest because Max had made him so nervous that night. Logan had bought only one more wheelchair, for his basketball games. After that, money had grown tight with the fall of Cale Industries, so Logan had kept and repaired the same sturdy everyday chair for the past seven years. It was that wheelchair that the coroner's office was now loading unceremoniously into the back of the van.


	15. Ch 15 Cold Wait

_Back in the Alley – The Waterfront_

All that long, cold day, Logan wished for that hot shower he'd almost gotten. He caught enough of the conversations to figure out that the investigators had been there all day. Lying still in that damp tunnel, he grew colder and colder until he gave up trying to stop his teeth from chattering. His fingers felt numb. The knot in the pit of his stomach felt as though it would never unwind.

A sliver of light shone around the door, but it wasn't enough light to really see much. Logan fumbled around in the backpack that he'd managed to grab from the back of his chair. He took a swig from a water bottle he had found stashed in there, but it didn't do much to quell his hunger. He hadn't eaten since noon the previous day. He tried to tell himself that being beaten and tortured by Bronck and the like had been much worse than this day of waiting, but his growling stomach wouldn't let him forget about his present situation. In any case, his fear for Eva and Max ate at him worse than any real hunger.

By now, Max must have heard about the shooting, wherever she was. It would have been all over the news…_the execution murder of Eyes Only_. Max used to tease that she was the brawn and he was the brains, but the truth of the matter was that Max had plenty of brains, enough for both of them. Logan might have had the inside track when it came to tweaking the technology, but Max had pieced together the story more than a few times. Would she see past the obvious and come looking for him? Where was she right now?


	16. Ch 16 Turned Away

_Out Front – The Waterfront_

Max stood by, watching the coroner removing the body. It was covered by a tarp, but as the men lifted the body, the tarp slid down a bit. Max's sharp eyes caught the brown shoes and the edge of the familiar coat. Her ears caught the words discussing dental records and identification. Her heart was pounding so hard that she had trouble concentrating on what the men were saying.

But if the still body was Logan's wouldn't she have already known it in her heart? Max was sure that if he were really dead, she wouldn't even have had to come down here. She would have just felt it in her bones, wouldn't she? But the jolt of seeing his chair and the body – she had felt a cold finger of doubt. She had to get closer…to see his face.

The yellow tape kept Max back, while the men hustled the body into the back of the van and shut the doors. Some of the onlookers drifted off and Max nervously moved closer. The lower ranking officers were holding up other tarps over various parts of the crime scene, presumably to preserve any footprints or other marks that might give clues about the murder. Shoeprints and boot prints criss-crossed the patch of dirt. Max's eyes strained to look at every inch of the alley, even as the police began to disperse the crowd.

Then, she saw something. Among the mess of footprints were two sets of clear handprints, next to the wall, away from the body. Before she had a chance to turn them over in her mind, the handprints filled with rain and disappeared.

"Get back. We're pushing you all back outside the gate," the uniformed officers yelled, pushing the spectators beyond the chain link fence. The rain seemed to be slowing, and she could hear the detectives barking orders to continue processing the crime scene. The crowd grew bigger. Max could pick them out. Beige trench coat – detective. Dark uniforms – vice. Ties and sunglasses – maybe FBI, but maybe it was too early for them. College students and curious neighbors swirled around her.

They flashed by quickly. Was that a comlink she saw on a student? Not a regular cell phone earpiece, but a state-of-the-art government issue earpiece. Then, she saw another. The vultures had arrived. If Eyes Only was dead, his enemies would flock to the scene…just to be sure it was really him. And the FBI and the rest of the alphabet soup would also descend to spy on the feeding frenzy. The hair on back of Max's neck stood on end and her barcode prickled.

"That's my cue to go. I've got to get out of here. I'll be back," she whispered to no one in particular as she tore her gaze away from the scene. If Max wanted to examine the alley again, she was going to have to come back later.

Max made her way back toward the street, pretending to look at her watch. She rounded the corner and sped up. A couple of plain clothes cops stepped out of a car and headed toward her. Avoiding eye contact, she stopped to tie a adjust something on her bag, then crossed casually to the other side of the street. Halfway down the block, she stole a glance in a parked car's side view mirror, trying to see if they had paid any attention to her. A tree that grew out over the sidewalk blocked her path and she ducked under a low branch to get around it. Straightening up, she pulled up short as she found herself looking directly into a familiar face.


	17. Ch 17 A Familiar Face

_Out Front - The Waterfront_

Max grinned up at the familiar "face" of the muddy Aztek, flicking a chunk of dirt off the front grille.

"About time I caught a little break," she thought. Reaching under the rear bumper, she pulled out the spare key. Circling around to the driver's side door, she glanced down at the muddy footprint on the step as she pressed the key to unlock the door.

Footprint?

She froze. Stepping quickly to the side, she threw open the back door. A dark figure lay on the floor. As the figure began to rise up, Max unleashed a swift kick. The man dodged the kick easily. Taken aback, Max quickly adjusted and closed the distance between them. She connected with her fists, once, twice. Then her opponent ducked around a third punch, backing farther into the car.

"Max! Give it a rest, will you? Just get in the car and shut the door."

Alec's brown head emerged from the shadows. Max sank back against the door frame, sighing with relief. Alec climbed into the passenger seat, withdrawing a small laptop and placing an earpiece in one ear. He settled down immediately and began to type.

"So what'd you find out?" Alec asked, not looking up from the computer.

Max climbed wearily into the back seat, burying her head in her hands.

"Look, Alec, I'm really sorry I just ran out of there."

Alec continued to type. Shutting the door, Max climbed over into the driver's seat.

"You should know better than to leave a footprint on Logan's side of the car," Max tried to tease lightly.

A silence settled between them again.

"Alec?"

"No, Max, I get it, Alec interrupted. "You're gonna do what you're gonna do. You don't think I know that by now? You haven't talked to me in months. You just want me around to watch out for Eva, so you can do your own rescue mission. You always had to make it a solo op, didn't you?" Alec spat the words out.

Max didn't reply. She leaned forehead against the cool window.

"I didn't find out anything, Alec. There were cops everywhere. I couldn't get close enough. The body…" her voice trailed off. _It _was covered up. But Logan's shoes, and his coat, his chair." She couldn't finish. "I would know in my heart, wouldn't I? Her eyes wide, she turned to Alec for confirmation.

Alec's fingers stopped, but he didn't look up.

Max's voice was quiet, "I should have waited for a plan, for backup. I'm sorry."

Finally, Alec looked up. He stared at her a long moment. He pursed his lips as if to say something, then thought better of it. "Whatever," he shrugged.

Max gripped the steering wheel and looked out into the steady drizzle. Neither of them said anything for some time.

After a few minutes, Alec pressed "talk" on the wireless headset.

"Hello, can I speak to Chief Matt Sung, please."

Max reached out and pressed mute on the laptop. "Are you crazy? We haven't talked to Matt in years. After he and Logan were kidnapped by Bronck, Logan cut off contact with him, told him that Eyes Only suspected he might have been a leak. Matt didn't remember too much of that night. Logan wanted to scare him off, to protect him and his family. They didn't part on the best of terms. You can't just call him up"

"Do you have any other more brilliant ideas, 'cause I'm ready to hear them any time? Someone needs to take a look at that body once and for all, someone we can trust, and I don't know how else to get at it," Alec continued.

"There has to be some other way, Alec. Logan made me promise we'd never involve Matt."

Matt and Logan had been true friends, during a very dark time when Logan hadn't had too many friends to spare. Matt knew Logan before and after the shooting and always treated him in the same steady manner. That had meant a lot to Logan.

"Anyway, after Bronck captured and tortured both of them, Logan just decided that he'd never put Matt in danger like that again. I tried to tell him that Matt was a big boy and that he knew about the risks in talking to Eyes Only. But Logan starting going on about Matt figuring out Eyes Only's true identity and bringing danger onto himself and his family. After the incident, Logan called him up and told him that Eyes Only had found information suggesting that Matt been trying to deliver Eyes Only to Bronck, and that he would have to break off all contact with him. Matt was devastated. Matt called once and left a message begging for a chance to explain, but Logan never answered him. I know Logan was just trying to protect Matt, but it seemed "cruel and unusual" at the time. You know how pigheaded Logan can be. He just gave some hollow excuse that it was more important to have someone incorruptible in the police department, and refused to talk about it. He certainly wasn't taking advice from me at the time. I know Logan missed Matt's help and his friendship, but he never suggested opening things up with again. I can't go against Logan's wishes."

"Max, _you're_ not going against Logan's wishes. _I_ am. And_ I_ don't have a problem with it."

"Yes, sorry we got cut off," Alec spoke into the headset again. "Can I please speak to Chief Sung? It's about the murder this morning at the waterfront. Tell him Max needs to speak to him. No, I need to speak directly to the chief. I can wait."

Alec drummed his fingers on the dashboard.

The woman came back on the line. "I'm sorry, the Chief says he can't talk to you. He's about to give a press conference."

"Wait," Alec pressed on, "Tell him if he changes his mind, he can call this number when he's done. Make sure to tell him Max is calling." Alec reeled off the number to the secure cell phone in his hand.

"All right. It will be at least 45 minutes."

"Okay." Alec signed off. There was nothing else to do, but wait. The drizzle turned to rain police officers began to leave, a few at a time. After three quarters of an hour, the place looked deserted.

Max stirred. "I'm going out to check the scene one more time."

"No, Max. Just wait fifteen more minutes. Matt might call back. Then, I'll come with you," Alec pleaded.

Max took her hand off the door handle, but she didn't settle back down into her seat.


	18. Ch 18 Escape with Wings Clipped

_The alley - The Waterfront - 6 P.M_

All day, Logan had lay, waiting, inside the narrow tunnel. He blew on his hands and rubbed them together futilely. He tried to sleep, but his shivering body wouldn't let him. Finally, the rain had turned into a downpour and even the hardy detectives had given up. The voices died away until all he could he hear was the familiar sound of the rain. Sooner or later, the detectives would return and someone would decide to look in the trash chutes. Logan was lucky they hadn't found him yet. There was no use waiting any longer. He had to try for an escape.

Logan rummaged in his backpack one more time, even though he had gone over the sparse contents a dozen times already. He'd left his laptop in the car and his cell phone had been taken from him. He did have some money and Tim's gun. Maybe he'd have a use for that later, but that wasn't going to do him much good now. And he'd leave the heavy semiautomatic behind. There wasn't much else.

Cautiously, he opened the door once again. The light was fading. The rain had washed away most of the paint until what remained lay in pools of faded purple. The body was gone. His chair was gone. Of course, Logan had spent most of the day trying to figure a way around that particular problem and hadn't come up with too many great ideas. Putting the backpack on, he eased his way out of the narrow chute, rolling onto the ground. Without his chair, he felt exposed and vulnerable. Shaking the stiffness out of his arms, he slid himself as quickly as he could across the alley to the door on the opposite side of the alley. During the day's rain, the ground had become a sodden mess and Logan quickly found himself dragging along enough mud to grow a garden. Leaning against the door, he pushed himself into the boathouse and let his eyes adjust to the dark.

In spite of the insanity of the past twenty-four hours, he smiled at the sight of the rows of boats lining the walls. The Cale Family had kept a sailboat, but Logan had loved to row. Not stubby rowboats, of course, but sleek, long crew boats. He had learned to row at summer camp on Lake Washington. Logan liked the discipline of pushing himself to the limit, concentrating only on the back of the boy in the next seat and feeling the boat surge forward with every stroke. He remembered sitting at the start, with back and legs cocked. Then, at the gun, legs pushed together as one, backs strained, and oars sliced through the water.

After that summer, his father had urged him to continue the sport. Surrounded by his boisterous teammates, the quiet, serious boy slowly grew bolder and more confident. During high school, he had often come to the University of Washington boathouse, just across the inlet, dreaming of joining their rowing program some day.

That had all changed when his parents had died, leaving him with his Uncle Jonas. His uncle had laughed at his idea of attending a "state" university. Jonas had withdrawn his application to UW, sending him off to Yale where "all the Cale men go." Jonas had forbid him to row at Yale, stating that he was wasting too much good money on school to let him spend his days on the water. Still, for the first few summers when he had come back to Seattle, he would sneak over to the boathouse, to his old friends and the steady rhythm of the oars.

When Vann had thrown him in the boathouse the first time, Logan had been in the tiny office. Now, he was in the main part of the boathouse. He had entered through the alley door. In front of him, the large cargo doors led toward the water. To his left, lay the side door which faced the parking lot. The walls rose up thirty feet, with the long, slender eight-man boats resting upside down on supports. Shorter boats lined the middle aisles. Deep bins along the walls held the long oars. Working himself sideways, he skidded along the smooth floor, leaving a muddy streak in his wake. If he could cut through the boathouse and go out the side door, his car might still be there, parked beyond the chain link fence. Logan stopped to catch his breath and ran a hand along the smooth hull of one of the narrow single sculls, breathing the familiar damp smell of oil and wood.

It was quiet. The only sound in the old boathouse was the dripping of the rain on the roof high above.


	19. Ch 19 On the Move

_Outside the alley – The Waterfront_

"What have we here?" Max sat up straighter in the seat of the Aztek. Through the steady rain, her keen eyes could just make out a black SUV with tinted windows driving cautiously toward the boathouse. "If that's law enforcement, I'm the Easter Bunny. Come on, Alec, let's go."

"Wait, I'm just picturing that particular imagery. With or without basket of eggs? Hey, where are you going? What about Matt?"

"Bring the phone."

Max was already pulling on her black jacket and sliding out of the car. With a grunt, Alec closed up the laptop and followed her.


	20. Ch 20 With Luck, If It Exists

_Inside the Boathouse_

A loud scraping and banging of metal broke the quiet of the boathouse. Rough voices came from the direction of the side door. With a start, Logan realized that someone was coming into the boathouse. He glanced around frantically for a place to hide. He pulled himself into the shadows next to the bin which held the upright oars, pulling his knees up to his chest and wrapping an arm around them.

"Miller, can't you keep it down? I don't think we need to bring the entire Seattle PD back again," came the hoarse whisper, as a man pushed the heavy metal door open and entered the boathouse.

"We wouldn't even have to come back to this moldy place if you'd done the cleanup right the first time," replied his companion.

"Look, Vann was always in charge of all that. He didn't really feel it was necessary to let us in on the plan. We already yanked all the hardware and all the paperwork. How was I supposed to know there was some backup file Mr. Snow made him keep? The Mr. Snow wasn't even sure where Vann put it. Just go in there and find it, okay? I'm waiting in the car."

The bigger man stumped into the office. "Where the hell did all this mud come from?" he muttered. "I guess even the cops can't keep the evidence clean when it's a mud bath outside."

Logan stilled his breathing. He didn't dare move. He was only a few feet from the office door. Silently, he pulled the gun from his pack and fingered the trigger. Logan really didn't want to have to fire it. Who knew how many other cronies were waiting outside? It had grown darker in the building. The man walked by quickly, ignoring the trail of grime that led straight to Logan's hiding spot. After five minutes, the man emerged from the office.

"You'd think he hide it in an obvious place," he swore and muttered to himself. "What kind of idiot makes a backup copy and doesn't tell anyone else where…" The man had started back towards the side door, but now he stopped, looking at the floor. He stood directly on the path of mud, now backlit by the setting sun, standing out against the dull glow of the concrete floor.

"What the…" His eyes hardened as they followed the streak of mud toward the place where Logan leaned against the wall.

Half hidden in the shadows, Logan tried desperately to impersonate the wall.

The huge man crossed the space in two strides, as he reached for to his gun. Logan lunged forward, pushing off the wall with one hand and grabbing the man's leg with the other. He looked up to see the man holding the gun up in the air. The man brought down hard, aiming for Logan's head. Twisting away, Logan grabbed the hand as it came down and jerked it down hard. The man stumbled and Logan threw both arms around the man's legs, bringing him down with a crash.

The man tried to push up onto his knees. Logan snatched at the gun again as the man tried to bring it around to fire at him. Rolling his body to the side, he forced the bigger man's body over too, pinning the gun underneath them both. Digging his elbows into the man's back, he pushed forward until he was almost completely on top of the other man. The man tried to stand, but Logan's arms were around his neck already. Logan flipped onto his back, arms locked around the man's neck, bringing the heavier man over as well. The bigger man struggled mightily, then suddenly went limp. Logan held on for another few seconds, then pushed the slack massive body off his chest.

"That's more like it. Bling would be proud," he thought, breathing hard. But he hardly had time to relish his little victory. The man was out cold for now, but he'd wake up eventually. He searched the man's pockets quickly. Without waiting to see who had heard the scuffle, he began sliding himself toward the big main doors.

He gave up on the idea of looking for his car. He'd have to make it up as he went along, as Max was fond of saying. The heavy-set man, who now lay in a limp heap behind him, had entered through the side door facing the street. To look for his car, Logan would have to go out that door, sneak past the other man, and make his way halfway down the block. Unlikely. Besides, either the police or the crooks had probably taken his car away anyway.

He turned instead toward the two enormous cargo bay-type doors for the boats and the smaller regular door facing the bay.

"Ten minutes, tops," Logan thought, "before they come in looking for their man." Logan poked his head out of the door leading to the water. Like all classic boathouses, this one had a wide ramp that stretched the entire width of the building, sloping gently out over the water. He considered crawling out into the grass, but there was so little cover that he didn't think he'd get too far.

Logan looked frantically around the boathouse again, searching for some other way out. The long crew boats were useless to him. Even the smallest single scull was almost 30 feet long. He was about to give up and resort to going for a swim, when he spied the corner of something red peeking out from under a tarp. It was an upended, faded canoe, left there by someone who had needed a practical little boat to putter around.

Logan pulled the canoe away from the wall and started to shove it toward the door. To his surprise, it slid easily across the floor. He grabbed a short paddle out of the bin, then gave the canoe a bigger heave and pushed it through the door.

A car doors slammed in the parking lot of the boathouse. Miller exited the black SUV. He wrenched open the door to the boathouse, thrusting his head inside. The sun had completely set and the interior of the boathouse was dark.

Out on the ramp, Logan pushed the aluminum canoe down the ramp. The noise of the metal canoe on the wooden deck seemed deafening. Tucking in his legs with one arm, he half-rolled, half-tumbled down the ramp, shoving the canoe ahead of him. Halfway down, he took a shortcut and shoved the boat off the side of ramp, into the water. Was it possible that the other men hadn't heard him and come out on the ramp yet?

The man stood, half in and half out of the parking lot door. "Hey, you were the one who told _me_ to keep it down. You're lucky the rest of the guys can't hear from inside the truck. What the hell are you doing in there that's so loud? I'm coming in," he whispered loudly. He played the flashlight on the walls, looking for a sign of his partner.

At that moment, the ring of a cell phone erupted from the bushes away to the right. Miller whirled around, raising his gun.

On the deck, Logan looked down at the canoe. The distance from the deck to the canoe was a good foot. Lying down on the deck, he reached down and grabbed the gunnels of the canoe. Without wasting any more time, Logan heaved himself down onto the canoe. He fell awkwardly onto the canoe, which pitched wildly almost heaving him into the chilly water. His legs hit the canoe behind him with a resounding smack.

At the parking lot entrance, Miller took a few cautious steps toward the bushes, but cell phone had stopped. He decided to chalk it to his hang-over. He turned back toward the boathouse and slid past the heavy door, letting it close behind him.

Logan hauled himself upright. Twisting around to sit up, Logan plunged his paddle into the water. Uncertain of his own stability in the canoe, he sat on the bottom on some PFD vests, leaning against the aft seat, just tall enough to reach over the side to paddle. Stroking for all he was worth, he pulled cleanly away from the dock.

Voices rose from inside the boathouse. The men had found the unconscious body of their fallen comrade. The harbor side door flew open and a scowling man came out and scanned the water. The breeze had stirred some ripples, but the lake was otherwise placid and empty.

Fearing some sort of ambush, since they couldn't rouse their partner to give them any useful information, they took one more quick look around the boathouse and headed back into the black SUV.

"I could have sworn I heard a cell phone," Miller muttered under his breath, as he stepped into the car.

Hidden inside a tool shed, Max cuffed Alec smartly in the head.

Can you think of anything more amateur than your cell phone ringing in the middle of a mission?" Max turned on him.

"Max, as I recall, you were the one rushing me out of the car before I even had a chance to put anything away. What happened to rule # 1000, or whatever, a mission is only as good as its preparation? Besides, even with a lot of firepower, we could have taken 'em."

"That's not the point. Right now, they might be our link to what happened here. If we got into it with them, they might shut down and disappear," Max sat down on a wooden crate.

"Well then, it's a good thing we didn't."

Safely round the bend, Logan dug his paddle into the water, moving steadily away from the boathouse, while Max opened the door of the tool shed and stepped out into the rain again.

They both whispered.

"That was a close one."


	21. Ch 21 On the River

_**Many thanks to Griever11, who beta's this last update. How did I ever get along before. Curious to know what you all think of Matt in this update.**_

_Near McCurdy Park, Seattle, Washington _

Logan paddled slowly through the dark water, staying ten or fifteen meters from the rocks that lined the shore. The sun had set below the horizon, though its pale glow still lit the cloudy sky. As soon as he had rounded the bend, he passed under one concrete bridge, and then another. The pillars were massive, measuring twenty feet across, and rose out the water like enormous redwoods, supporting the bridge another twenty feet up. The pillars had supported the various on-ramps and off-ramps of what once had been one of Seattle busiest highways. Shortly after the Pulse, a minor trembler from nearby Mount St. Helens had caused some cracks to appear in one of the ramps. Since the city didn't have the money to fix it, they closed the bridge and it had gradually fallen into disrepair. The air seemed grey and still as Logan threaded his way around the columns. The boathouse was just to the north of the point where Highway 520 crossed Union Bay, the narrow outlet of Lake Washington.

As he passed a small group of columns, Logan almost laughed out loud.

"You have to hand it to the citizens of Seattle," he thought. Three columns stood together, their sides decorated with brightly colored rock climbing holds. Hungry for fun in this barren post-Pulse wasteland, some kids had turned the abandoned bridge into a climbing wall. It didn't surprise Logan. Jam Pony had been full of messengers doing the same kinds of things during their off hours. Max and her friends had all been trying to survive, but they still found the time for a "duel" of mad biking skills.

The river swept Logan out from under the shadows of the bridge and curved around McCurdy Park. Just before the Pulse, the tiny strip of marsh had been converted into a park and botanical gardens. A maze of wooden walkways jutted out into the bay, interspersed with strips of meadow grass and plants. At one time, the plantings had been a carefully planned profusion of flowers, but now the bushes and trees had taken on a wild overgrown look.

Logan sat on the floor of the canoe, leaning against the aft seat to give himself a little more stability. Sitting on the seat would have been an invitation for a dunk in the lake, since he had no way to brace himself, but reaching over the gunnels of the canoe to paddle wasn't easy either. Now that the canoe was bobbing along in the current, he didn´t dare try to hoist himself up onto the seat. Ideally, it would have been best to cross the narrow channel at the boathouse, but he had ducked around the corner to escape Vann's men and now there was no turning back.

The opaque sky hid the moon, but Logan could still see the dark mass of Mt Rainer rising up on the left. Although the "U-Dub" boathouse was on the opposite shore of the channel, the view had been the same since his rowing days. On most days, the clouds hid the upper half of Mt Rainer, but sometimes the snowy mountain top showed itself. Once, on a trip home from college, while driving home from the airport, he had looked up at the mountain, straining to see its tip among the clouds.

"You´ve been away from Seattle too long, cousin. You´re looking too low," Bennett had laughed.

Sure enough, Logan had lifted his eyes higher up and spotted the gleaming summit, high above the grey clouds. Logan remembered a long ago conversation with Max before their trip to Cape Haven. Max had appeared triumphantly at the penthouse, gas can in hand, ready to scale the dizzying heights of Rainier. In the dark days after he had landed back in the chair, it seemed that the mountain had glared cruelly at him, reminding him of all the things he would never enjoy with Max. But after that, he'd never really had much of a chance to feel sorry for himself. Max hadn't let him. Hell, their whirlwind life hadn't let him. Four months ago, he and Max had been in the kitchen, retelling the story of one of their crazy missions.

"Hey, Max. For the life of me, I can't picture how we ever got out of that jam. Did I somehow catapult my chair over the railing from the second floor into that dumpster?"

"Are you kidding me? Don't you remember, you had the exo back then," Max had said, flinging a slice of bell pepper expertly at his head.

Way back at the beginning of their fledgling romance, the exoskeleton had seemed to be some kind of miracle, thanks to their great friend, Phil. But he had almost forgotten those few brief years with the exoskeleton. By the time the exoskeleton had disintegrated in the fiery crash of Aztek the First, Max and Logan had lived through the standoff at Jam Pony and a months-long seige at Terminal City. He had all but abandoned the exo, except as a disguise at times. Max had made it clear that she preferred him without it; "au naturale" as she put it.

Looking up at Mt. Rainier now, Logan could only think of all the battles Eyes Only had waged to keep Seattle safe. So many times, over the past five or six years, Bling had pushed them to leave Seattle, to start over in anonymity. But Logan and Max had always remained loyal to the city where they had met. Eyes Only still had lives to save in Seattle.

However, Eyes Only might have finally worn out his welcome. Even if he somehow made it out of this fiasco alive, Eyes Only would likely have to leave Seattle. The only other alternative was for him to lie low for a year or two, and he knew he was no good at that.

The canoe struck a rock, bringing him out of his reverie. "Careful, Cale," he muttered, "no more daydreaming, unless you want to go for a swim."

The shore on his right was lined with stacked concrete blocks, meant to shore up the banks. Even if he could pull himself up onto the bank, he wouldn't be able to make it too far over the tumble of concrete. If he was going to abandon his canoe, which, so far, had served him pretty well, he'd have to have some way to keep moving. At this point, all he wanted was to get as far away from the docks as he could and somehow contact Sebastian or Alec.

As he rounded a bend, he saw a flat spot in the shoreline. A small building sat close to the point, with wooden tables scattered around it, leading down to the water's edge. Logan hadn´t traveled this strip coastline often, but he did know that if he kept going, he would be swept into the middle of Lake Washington, into the path of container ships and barges headed for the commercial docks. A sign on the building had once read, "Hot Food, Coffee," but now proclaimed, "Foo," in brilliant neon. Long rows of 18-wheelers and pickup trucks sat lined up alongside the diner, where Pike Street skirted the edge of the lake. After Highway 520 fell out of use, the north-south traffic had taken over small streets such as Pike St., clogging them with trucks and buses. Most restaurants along the water sported lake view terraces, but the patrons of the "Foo" diner, as it was now known, had no interest in the view. They were all truckers looking for a hot meal between North and South Seattle.

As he rested the paddle in the canoe, Logan reached absently for the backpack. Surprised, he drew back his hand, dripping wet. The canoe had begun to ship water. His legs were already wet and the water was creeping up his jacket. That decided it for him. He couldn´t spend the whole night in the frigid water, having already spent a day and a night in that freezing meat locker in the alley. He had to get out and get dry, even if it meant dragging himself up onto the grassy bank.

Plunging his paddle deep into the water and back paddling, he slowly turned the bow of the canoe toward the shore. The canoe began to sideslip and turn too far. Logan paddled desperately to keep the boat heading downstream. He had almost slipped past the diner, when he heard the canoe scrape against the gravelly shore. Back paddling on the port side, Logan let the canoe drift sideways onto the rough bank. Almost immediately, the water began to push up against the upstream side of the canoe where it formed a dam against the ongoing current. The canoe began to tilt. Logan grabbed the backpack and heaved it onto the back. He turned around and, grabbing the seat and the right side of the canoe, he heaved his body up. His body weight pushed the right side down and the canoe began to fill with water. Logan pushed himself forward off the canoe and landed in the water between the canoe and the bank. Coughing and spluttering, he clutched at the rocky bank, pulling himself forward toward solid ground. The canoe, released of its weight, bobbed up, spun around once and floated swiftly away into the current.

The icy water made him gasp, but Logan forced his arms to keep pushing forward until he felt the ground solid under his cheek. He pushed himself the last few feet up onto the bank until he thought his legs had cleared the water. He hugged the damp grass and waited for his chest to stop heaving.


	22. Ch 22 An Old Friend

Matt Sung, Assistant Chief of Police, ran his fingers through his hair and sank down into his desk chair

_Anacortes, Washington_

Matt Sung, Assistant Chief of Police, ran his fingers through his hair and sank down into his desk chair. It was the first time he had sat down in all day. He closed his eyes and rubbed his temples, trying to decide what to do next. When Matt had gotten the call from the chief about Eyes Only, he had been 70 miles away meeting with a D.A about a case. For the past four months, he had been making weekly drives out to the site of a massive arms sting operation. They were finally getting close to closing it down.

"Wait a second, Chief. Slow down, I couldn't hear you for a second."

"I said, if it's true, don't you think that's crazy? All of Seattle's been looking for Eyes Only for 10 years and it turns out he's some guy in a wheelchair. Don't know who he is yet. Guess the M.E. will tell us if he's in the system."

Suddenly, it felt as though the whole room had gone cold. Matt could only think of one name.

Logan Cale. And Matt doubted very much if he would be in the system.

It had been twenty years since Matt had entered the police academy just before the Pulse. He had made it through to the rank of detective before he realized that a blue cop uniform could hide a multitude of sins. All his professional life, he had never known any world other than the insanity of the post-Pulse world. It seemed that everyone was on the take. Beat cops took kickbacks in exchange for protection from the local "businessmen." Matt knew he had friends and relatives in Chinatown who could have used a little protection, but he just couldn't bring himself to take the money. He kept seeing his son's face looking up at him and he just couldn't do it. Then one day, he had found a folded note on the driver's seat of his car. 

"I know you want to do more," it had said. "Make it count."

The note had ended with an address and a time. Matt had snorted and tossed the note in the trash. But later that week, after he saw one of his collars breeze out the door an hour after his arrest, he had found his feet straying over to the West Seattle bar. He had arrived an hour early and sat facing the door. Logan, who had been sitting in the back of the smoky room, rose to his feet and slid into the chair opposite Matt.

Logan had begun to talk, breezily, almost casually. Ever the detective, Matt had tried to size him up.

"Expensive 'non-haircut', nice glasses, snobby east coast white guy, trying too hard to be northwest Seattle cool, weekend idealist, fresh out of grad school, nothing to lose." Matt had smiled to himself.

At least, Logan's boss, Eyes Only, seemed to have thought of all the details. The instructions for contacting him with "intel" had been meticulous, detailed to a fault.

That was how it had begun for Matt. He started watching the Eyes Only cable hacks with a sort of grim delight. The daily grind of his job had begun to feel a little less grimy. In spite of his initial impression of Logan, Matt had taken a liking to the brash, confident young man. Actually, they were close to the same age. Maybe, if he hadn't had a wife and son to consider, he would have had the same attitude of invincibility about life that Logan had.

Then, one day, Logan stopped returning his calls and emails. The Eyes Only cable hacks stopped for three months too. He hadn't heard anything about trouble for Eyes Only from the station, so he figured that Logan's boss had felt a threat and gone deeper underground for awhile. Following Logan's instructions, Matt had stopped all contact and waited. Matt had almost given up hearing from Eyes Only, when he finally received a call from Logan.

"Haven't heard from you guys in a while," Matt had chuckled in relief, "Where you been?"

"Sorry, but Eyes Only wanted me to lie low for a little while, but I'm back now." Logan's voice had sounded different, more measured, more serious. "Can we meet tomorrow night?"

"Sure. The usual place?"

"Uh…no. I can't. I mean, that's not going to work for me. How about _The Arrow_, on Ash Street? First floor, okay? "

Matt had stepped into the dimly lit bar, allowing his eyes to adjust to the light as he stood by the door. Wooden tables lined the walls. A few men gathered around an old dartboard.

Logan was waiting for Matt at one of the tables. He was thinner than before and his face looked gaunt and pale. Then, as Logan pulled his hands off his lap to fiddle nervously with his glass, Matt saw what he had missed at first - that his friend sat in a wheelchair.

"Man, are you all right?" Matt asked softly, lowering himself carefully into a chair. The words hung in the air.

"I…I wasn't doing too well, but I'm things are getting better now. Trying to make the best of it, you know." Logan looked up at Matt and gave him a look that had just enough upturn to qualify as a smile. "Let's move to the back where it's darker."

Logan lifted his beer off the table and set it between his legs, backing away from the table. He wheeled around and headed off to the back of the bar. Matt followed, trying to disguise the shock at seeing his friend so changed.

"What happened? Did you get hurt doing a job for Eyes Only? Why was everything so quiet on the informant net?" Matt's questions spilled out.

Logan ignored Matt's questions and stopped at one of the back tables.

"We don't have a lot of time" Logan spoke quickly, pulling out an envelope from a bag hanging behind his chair. He pressed it into Matt's hands. "I need you to contact this list of informants with new passwords, then wait for further instructions. Can you do it?"

"Sure, Logan. Hey, where are you going?"

Logan was already heading toward the back door. He paused to look over his shoulder. Their eyes met and his gaze softened.

"I had an accident, but I'm working on getting better, really. Relax Matt, don't worry." Logan smiled as he pushed his way out the back door. "Give me a 15 minutes head start before you leave, will you? It takes me a while to get into the car now."

Logan was gone before Matt had to chance to ask any other questions.

When Matt saw Logan the next time, there was no mention of the chair or his injury. Matt let it go. They rarely spoke of the chair again. And Matt never again saw him without it.

Matt began to bring in more important information, helping to expose corruption in the mayor's office. Then, one day, he and Logan must have dug a little too deep, trying to expose a crook named Bronck. He and Logan were caught and held captive together, two Eyes Only operatives about to be sacrificed for the good of the cause. Matt had tried to fight the haze of pain as long as he could, but he had eventually passed out. Somehow, Eyes Only had rescued them. He had awoken on the cold concrete floor to find that Bronck had been killed.

Logan should have been overjoyed that they had been rescued. Instead, he became withdrawn. He contacted Matt less and less often, citing that Eyes Only wanted him to lie low. Matt tried to reassure his friend.

"Logan, I told you I'm fine. If I didn't know better, I'd think that you were somehow blaming yourself for our little adventure. I signed up on my own to be an informant for Eyes Only, same as you. I can't help it if Eyes Only had me pegged as a softie for his cause, can I? It'll all blow over." Matt had joked sympathetically. .

How wrong he had been. A month later, he received the terse email from Eyes Only.

"We have evidence that a security breach may have led to an unfortunate incident involving two operatives. We cannot be sure of your level of involvement. You will cease all communication at this time."

"Son of a #! Matt had shoved his desk hard against the wall, cracking the plaster and drawing the eyes of every detective in the department. Despite the warning against contact, Matt had a left desperate message on Logan's voicemail.

"_Logan, you're got to believe me. I had nothing to do with that Bronck incident. You know I'd never do anything to put you in harm's way or to jeopardize Eyes Only. This is a formality, right? You'll get back to me when it all blows over?" _

But his voice mail and email had remained silent. Why hadn't Logan defended him, explained to Eyes Only that Matt couldn't have been the leak? They had been friends, hadn't they?

Matt remembered his last conversation with Logan before Bronck's men had shown up. Logan had been asking him about his marriage and whether his wife gave him a hard time about his work.

"Matt, does it bother your wife that you spend so much time at work? Does she ever think you're obsessed with work? Do you think I'm obscessed?" Logan had asked out of the blue.

"I find it very hard to believe that _I_ would have to give _you_ advice about women. I spent all my formative years trying to pick up tips from guys like you." Matt had laughed.

"Maybe, Matt. But things are different for me now," Logan had said softly. That was the closest that Logan had come to talking about his new life in the chair. Maybe he would have let him in on that new life. Who knows, maybe he had met someone. But Matt had never had the chance to find out.

Now, the memories came flooding back to Matt, jumbled in a heap. How could he have been so stupid? He had been too angry at Eyes Only for mistrusting him and too angry at Logan for not defending him that he hadn't allowed himself to think about other possibilities. What if they were one and the same? Had Logan been Eyes Only from the beginning?

Matt had to see the body. It was too late to change the past, but maybe there was a way he could still help Eyes Only.

Matt picked up his phone again and started dialing.

"Hey, Jean, it's Matt. Can you tell me where the body from that Eyes Only shooting went?"

"What? What do you mean it's been transferred? Who approved that?"


	23. Ch 23 Playing Sherlock

The Waterfront

_The Waterfront_

Max and Alec emerged from the tool shed.

"I guess the dirt bags are gone," Max looked in the direction of the road.

"Max, you don't think they were involved in the shooting, do you? There's no way they'd risk coming back to the scene. Maybe they were just other enemies of Eyes Only, coming to check out the scene? But what the hell just happened in the boathouse just now? Hey, shouldn't we be checking back with that Matt guy, Logan's friend? Assistant Chief whoever?"

Alec looked back toward Max, expecting an answer, but she was gone. Sighing, he picked up the backpack Max had left on the ground and trotted around the side of the building.

"Hurry up, I've got to have another look at that alley before the light is completely gone. We can go back to the boathouse later," Max spoke in a stage whisper over her shoulder, at a volume she knew Alec could still hear 50 feet away. She skirted the corner of the building and stepped into the alley.

The light had begun to turn purple. The moon stood in the sky, but didn't seem to shed much light yet. Max strode past the spot where the body had lain, her eyes purposefully avoiding the stained ground. Instead, she stepped over to the wall, where she had seen the two sets of clear hand prints. The rain had long since washed away the prints, but Max remembered where they had been. She gazed up at the expanse of brick wall, whose smooth surface stretched up three stories. She closed her eyes, remembering the clear set of handprints that had stood out so clearly from the footprints that had criss-crossed the entire alley. She didn't need a coroner to tell her that the wheelchair was definitely Logan's, but if he and his chair had parted ways, as she so desperately hoped, she would need to start tracking for handprints, not footprints.

Max traced her finger along the windowsill of the one of the sixteen windows that faced the alley. The dust was spotted by the rain, but, otherwise, the windows looked undisturbed. Climbing in one of those windows would have taken considerable acrobatics from Logan, since Max could barely see into them on tiptoe. She dismissed the row of low metal doors that lined the alley. They looked like some sort of maintenance access, but she had seen the detectives try all the doors and they had all been locked tight.

Max turned around and leaned against the wall. The moon glowed dully behind a thick cover of clouds, casting only faint moon shadows across the alley. She tilted her head back, closing her eyes, and let out long breath. She slid slowly down the wall, sitting against it with her legs drawn up in front of her.

"Where could you have gone, Logan?" Max whispered under her breath, as she tilted her head back and leaned against the wall.

Max felt something shift behind her head. Curious, she turned to inspect the wall again. What she had thought was a maintenance hatch was actually a trash chute and this one appeared to be slightly ajar. Slowly, she pulled the door open. The smell of rotting trash hit her like a wall. She thrust her head into the tunnel and peered down its length. Down at the far end, some debris lay piled up, but right in the middle of the shaft lay a tiny scrap of paper. She pulled it out and unfolded it. It was a piece of paper torn hurriedly from some sort of list. The ink was smudged and wet, but Max could just barely read the word, a_rtichokes_, written in a familiar scrawl. A grocery list. _Logan's_ grocery list. Max grinned.

"Logan was here. Alec, get over here. Help me track him." Max leapt to her feet and began to circle the boathouse, her nose to the ground.

"Hey Max, at least give me a second to catch up with you."

Alec ran to catch up to Max, but she had already opened the door of the boathouse and ducked inside.


	24. Ch 24 Foo's Diner

Lake Washington, Foo's Diner

_Lake Washington, Foo's Diner_

Logan must have closed his eyes for a few minutes, but when he opened them, the first thing he noticed was that he was very cold. Every stitch of clothing was thoroughly soaked and his teeth immediately took up their familiar chatter. Darkness still blanketed the river bank, but he guessed that he only had a couple of hours before the sun came up. Whatever contingency plans he and Max had dreamed up, Logan had never planned to be without his chair for such a long time. His arms ached. He wished he could hole up in a hiding place for the rest of the day. But as quickly as he thought of that idea, he dismissed it. He hadn't eaten anything, and barely drunk a few sips of water in 36 hours. He was wet and cold. If he waited another whole day, he'd be in no condition to go anywhere. He still had to put some distance between him and that crime scene at the boathouse. Of course, he could always yell for help and turn himself in, but he wasn't quite ready to give up Eyes Only yet.

Digging his elbows into the grass, Logan inched himself up the steep bank. He could see the long row of trucks just a few yards away. One more chance. If he could stowaway in a truck, he'd just ride it as far as he could, then try to find a way to contact Sebastian or Alec. The 18-wheelers were out of the question, since he had no way to open the cargo compartment and no way to climb over the 4 foot bumper. No, he'd have to find a car or a pickup truck.

As he watched, a pickup truck turned off the road and pulled into the grassy parking area, turning its lights off. A few university students climbed out of the cab and walked toward the diner, yawning and stretching. If they were going in for a bite to eat, he should have at least 15 or 20 minutes to climb into the truck bed.

As soon as the diner door swung shut, Logan pulled himself over the lip of the embankment, making for the row of trucks. Half-sitting sideways, he alternately slid his hips over the wet grass and reached down to pull his feet along, inchworm style. In a few minutes, he sat staring up at the tailgate of the pickup. Reaching up to grab hold of the bumper, he found himself staring at a familiar set of eyes. The truck had a pair of Eyes Only stickers plastered on the rear bumper. They were faded and peeling.

"If I can't get out of here, our time in Seattle might just fade away too, Max," Logan muttered under his breath.

He tucked his feet under him and reached up as high as he could to try to climb into the truckbed. Arms aching with cold, his hands slipped again and again as he tried to grip the cold metal. Finally, heaving himself with one arm, he managed to get the other hand over the edge of the tailgate. Using both arms now, he tried to pull himself up, but he couldn't get his legs out from under the edge of the bumper. He couldn't see where he was caught and he couldn't let go of the tailgate to check without losing his already tenuous grip on the cold metal. Suddenly, one hand gave way on the slippery edge and he lost his grip. Scraping his cheek roughly on the way down, Logan fell back onto the ground.

"Dammit," Logan struck the ground in frustration. He really should have been able to do it. He'd scaled equipment higher than this at the gym. Of course, he wasn't exhausted and frozen then. "The great Eyes Only stuck here because he can't climb into the back of a truck. Very impressive," he muttered to himself.

The back door of the diner swung open. Logan ducked behind the back of the truck as two men walked to their trucks at the far end of the row.

Fifteen minutes had passed. The other drivers might be back any minute. Logan surveyed the row of trucks again. Two spaces away sat a long car transport truck, its double decks filled with salvage vehicles to sell to the highest bidder. He didn't relish the idea of riding on the exposed back of the open truck, but what caught his eye was the back of the truck. The twin ramps for the vehicles, even when retracted, sat only about 18 inches off the ground.

Without stopping to think about it any longer, he made his way over to the car transport. Ignoring the pain in his frozen fingers, he hauled himself up onto the ramp. He shuddered to think of the bruises he'd probably collected from banging himself around for the last two days. Inch by inch, he slid along the ramp until he was underneath the last car. . The wheels of the car rested on wide ramps, leaving just enough space for him to wedge himself against the wheels.

He had just tucked himself into the shadows, when the restaurant doors opened again. A crowd of twenty or so diners was silhouetted briefly against the bright rectangle of the opening, then wandered back to their cars as the first light began to creep into the sky. As the cars pulled slowly out of the parking lot one by one, the rising sun illuminated what Logan had been unable to see in the dark.

The truck that Logan had tried to climb wasn't the only one with an Eyes Only bumper sticker. They all had stickers…and silk flowers tied to them with red-white-and blue homemade signs that declared, "We Won't Forget You, Eyes Only" and "Eyes Only Lives On." They were headed back to the grisly scene a the boathouse. They were mourners going to pay tribute to their hero, Eyes Only. Slowly the long line of cars pulled out, heading back up north toward the .

A chuckle escaped Logan's lips. He fought to keep quiet. As the car transport truck started up its engines with a roar, Logan let loose with a whoop and kept laughing as the truck pulled out of the lot. He laughed at the sight of the twenty cars joining an even longer line of cars, all paying tribute to Eyes Only. He laughed at the sheer lunacy that he had almost climbed into a truck that would have taken him right back to where he had started. He laughed until his sides ached. The cars inched their way slowly the mile upriver, honked their horns in the early morning stillness, as Logan's truck headed south, to freedom.


	25. Ch 25 The Sound

**Not a terribly long update, but I have more that's almost ready to go so I won't keep you waiting too long. Reviews very, very much appreciated. **

Max raised her head at the sound

Max raised her head at the sound.

"Did you hear that, Alec?" Max stood and scanned the area.

"Hear what? Just sounded like someone laughing and, maybe, a few cars starting. You're hearing things, Max. Hey, where are you going?" Alec rushed to keep up with Max as she skirted some boulders along the water.

"Hey, wait up!"


	26. Ch 26 The Truck

Logan tried his best to wedge himself closer to the wheels of the car. The vibration of the road threatened to shake him loose from his perch, so he shifted around to find a better position. The truck had pulled out onto the highway so the wind had picked up too.

If he could only get far enough away from the waterfront so that no one would make the link between him and Eyes Only. So that no one would make the link between him and Eva. Logan's eyelids began to droop and he jerked himself awake. Maybe it was too much to hope that he could get back to Eva. Maybe, he could only hope to lead the enemy away from her.

And what about Max? Four months ago, Max had been the one to lead the enemy away from Seattle and her family, but now it was Logan's turn. But, Max was probably a hundred miles away, oblivious to is crazy flight from the alley. Suddenly, it made him feel very alone. He tried not to think about it.


	27. Ch 27 Not Sticks and Stones

The shrill tone of Alec's cell phone cut through the silence.

"Alec, I thought you turned that ringer off."

"Shut up, I was too busy trying to hear Sebastian on the last call. It's hard enough to understand him when we're in the same room."

"My ears work fine, you know," the mechanical voice droned into Alec's ear.

"Sorry, Seb. Whaddya got?"

"Matt Sung called."

"Really, Sebastian? Now, who is he again?" Alec held the phone away from his ear and grimaced at Max.

Sebastian's monotone voiced seemed to get louder by a few decibels.

"Don't play stupid with me, Alec. I know you called him. Matt asked for you in the message! You knew Logan's old police contact was off limits. When Matt almost got killed, Logan felt responsible. He wanted Matt and his family to be safe. Logan didn't think Matt would go willingly, so he forced him out and stopped all contact. Don't you think we could have used him over the years? If you suck him into this, Logan is going to kill you."

"Yeah, well Logan isn't here, is he?" Alec muttered.

"Alec, you can stop pretending that you weren't the one who called Matt," Sebastian went on. "Besides, Matt asked specifically for you. Want the number?"

"I got it," Alec answered.

"Oh yeah, I forgot," Sebastian signed off, "X5 memory, you guys never forget anything."

There was a click, then silence.

Alec pressed the release button and bit his lip, eyeing Max.

Alec tried to catch up with Max, but she barely glanced back then started off again.

"Max, I gotta go back to the morgue."

"Yeah, so I heard." Came her terse reply.

"Max! Wait up a second." Alec stooped to pick up a quarter-sized rock, and, in the same motion, flicked it at Max's retreating back, 40 feet away.

"Ow! What the hell is wrong with you, Alec?" Max whirled around, her dark eyes blazing.

"Max, what're we doing? The trail must be cold by now. It's still pretty dark. We should go to the morgue, and then come back," Alec said impatiently.

"I can't go to the morgue yet, okay?" Max went on. "Logan left that note for me to find. He's close, I know it."

"Max, I'm trying to help you, but you're moving so fast I can't even keep up. We went over the boathouse twice. There's no sign that Logan somehow dragged himself out of there. We know he didn't leave in his chair. If he left in a boat, we don't have any way of tracking him. It's been at least 30 hours and he's probably long gone. I want to find him just as badly as-"

"Oh, I highly doubt that." Max spat out.

"How dare you say that? I've been hanging around your place for the past four months, keeping an eye on _your_ family. I taught Eva all that stuff you asked me to, after I almost took a coffee mug to the head from Logan for suggesting it. _I_ was here in Seattle doing _your _job-".

"Like you had anything better to do!"

"F- you, Max." Alec dropped the bag he had been carrying, "Look for him yourself."

Alec turned and climbed straight up the vertical embankment and was gone.


	28. Ch 28 The Leap

**Here's the next quick installment. Things are crazy hectic in RL right now. Forgot to thank Griever for all her help last go 'round and this time too. I love getting reviews of any kind, so toss some thoughts my way when you get a chance.**

Max looked around. A grey fog hung so thickly over the lake that she could hardly tell that the sun had risen. Straightening her shoulders, she ran a shaking hand across her face. She picked up a stone and hurled it as hard as she could at a boulder jutting out of the water, shattering it.

Slowly, Max picked her way up the rocky embankment. Climbing over a shallow concrete lip, she found herself in the parking lot of a small diner, one that sat in a narrow strip of land between the road and the water. It was the busiest time of day for the little truck stop with long lines of vehicles pulling out of the parking lot, both north and southbound. Max trained eyes over the trucks, not quite sure what to look for.

Then, she heard it again. Just before she had gotten into the fight with Alec, she had heard that same sound. It seemed strangely out of place. Laughter. It wasn't loud. Only her X5 ears could hear it above the rumble of car engines, but it was there. Max scanned the cars again. Maybe it was coming from one of the trucks swinging out of the parking lot.

Max started to run. She was finished thinking and planning. Her ears still rang with Alec's angry words, but she pushed those thoughts away. She hated the fact that she had automatically pushed aside her fight with Alec. Her Manticore-trained mind brain was still trained only on the task of tracking Logan. Her mind refused to be distracted. She refused to think that he might be dead.

Max feet flew over the ground as she ran to catch up with the fleet of trucks leaving the lot.

_She was no good at staying behind. Four months ago, she had left Logan with the job of watching and waiting._

Max caught up to the last truck in the line, its rear cargo hold locked tight. There was no place to hide there. She ran alongside it to catch up with the next to last truck

_She had lashed out at Alec because she couldn't acknowledge that she was terrified. _

The next truck was a tanker. Max swung herself up onto the ladder at the rear of the truck. She inched her way up the ladder and climbed along the top of the tank until she had a good view of the next truck ahead.

_Her own brain was cold and calculating, planning her next move, too afraid to let her heart feel anything real. _

Just in front of the tanker, a truck full of old cars slowly pulled into traffic. The old carcasses, bound for some salvage yard sat stacked in orderly fashion.

_Anger and hate was forcing its way around her strongest defenses. She knew too many ways to inflict pain, to injure and to kill. What was she capable of doing to anyone who had hurt Logan?_

Max had reached the front of the tanker and was peering down at a car salvage truck. But something peeked out from under the rear wheel of the last car stacked on the truck, something out of place. It was the edge of something soft. It looked like a coat, or a jacket. The fog swirled thickly around the vehicles, hiding it from a clear view.

Max took a few steps back along the top of the tanker. Before the driver had a chance to realize what was happening, Max took a running leap off the top of the cab of the truck. She took two steps on the hood of the truck and was in the air. Her fingertips barely snagged the rear edge of the upper level of the salvage truck. She grabbed it and held on as her legs slammed against the car below. She swung crazily for a moment, then landed with a thud on the lower level. The driver of the tanker truck following behind blinked and rubbed his eyes as the trucks parted ways and his road branched off to the right.

"I have really got to stop drinking those double espressos."

Max crouched down on the lower platform to keep her balance. Most of the lower platform was cast in shadow and fog, but she could still make out the bit of cloth under the left back tire. She crept up to the car and touched what looked like a brown coat.

A shot exploded next to her ear, just as the truck swerved. She spun away and tried to knock the gun loose as it swung towards her for a second shot at point blank range. Her ears were still ringing from the first shot as she grabbed the hand that had held the gun and pulled it towards her. Wide, green eyes in wire-rimmed glasses, spotted with raindrops, stared back into hers.

"Logan."

His eyes widened in recognition.

"Max."

She tried to step back, to take in his face, his hair, to confirm for herself that it really was Logan, but she couldn't back away from the fierce green eyes. They drew her in. They refused to let her go.

"Max." Logan voice said her name again, sounding as if it refused to believe it was her.

Max swallowed, her heart pounding fiercely against her chest.

Logan's hand still held fast to the gun as Max slowly forced it down.

"It's okay, Logan," she said, as she started to pry the gun from Logan's hand

Max tried to say something else, but her words got caught in the wind. Now she could see that the fluttering brown cloth was only a piece of a coat, caught on the bumper. She leaned down further to see that Logan had wedged himself deep underneath the car, prepared to make a last stand there in the shadows. Still gripping the gun, she tried to pull Logan towards her, to pull him out from under the car.

"I didn't want to fall off the truck," Logan whispered, his voice hoarse. "I tied myself in…I was getting really tired, Max." His eyes were wide, as if he believed she might disappear if he blinked.

"It's okay, Logan. I'm here now." Taking a knife from her bag, she cut through the coat which Logan had looped around his hips and tied to the truck frame. Max slowly forced the gun from Logan's hand, letting it clatter onto the highway below. Gently, she pried his other hand off the frame of the truck. With a strength that surprised her, Logan grabbed Max's hand and heaved himself out from under the car in one final effort.

Finally, his eyes closed. She leaned over and pressed her warm cheek against his cold one.

"It's okay, Logan," she repeated. "We're in this together now."

The truck continued its southward journey away from the waterfront, the fog all but hiding the two figures clinging to its back.


	29. Ch 29 Brief Respite

Just south past the downtown area, the transport truck slowed to a stop at a railroad crossing near an apartment complex. A figure stepped down off the back of the truck, a hood pulled low over its head. The person supported another figure, maybe someone who had overdone it the night before was now passed out cold. Walking slowly with its heavy burden the person stepped between two buildings and quickly disappeared into the mist.

A single pane of glass from the window was gently removed and a hand reached inside and opened the doorknob from the inside. The figure shouldered its burden again and slipped inside. The apartment looked as though it had been uninhabited for some time.

Max laid Logan down on the bare floor and he opened his eyes.

"Max…Eva. I don't know where she is. We've got to find her. I let her go…I didn't know what else to do." The words tumbled over each other as he started to sit up.

"It's okay, we've got her, Logan. I tried to tell you on the truck, but you were too out of it. She's fine. I saw her at Sebastian's. She got herself out. She did what you taught her."

He closed his eyes again and sighed, letting his head fall back against the floor. He covered his face in his hands, speaking through the mask his fingers made as he rubbed his temples.

I can't believe you're here. I thought I was dreaming."

"Did you try to shoot at me in your dream too?" Her voice came too sharply as she tried to cover up the shakiness that had crept into it. She leaned on the wall next to Logan. The image of the body and the overturned wheelchair in the alley flashed in her mind again.

"I guess I'm not too trusting of my dreams. I've had some pretty nightmare-ish dreams in my day." Logan shook his head, as if to clear his thoughts. "I thought I'd never see you again.

Gingerly, Max trailed her fingertips down to rest on Logan's head.

Suddenly, he reached up for Max's hand and pulled her down beside him. He took her face in his hands and kissed her lips, her cheeks, her hair. Her hair. He buried his face in her brown curls and kissed the nape of her neck.

"You know how much I've missed this hair?"

"Just the hair? Or the rest of me too?"

As they pulled each other down onto the cold, dusty floor, Logan reached his hands under Max's shirt to touch the fiery skin that seemed to burn his fingers. Neither of them spoke, as hands, fingers and lips became reacquainted again, their kisses kindling a fire which had lain dormant since Max had left. Max blew an errant wisp of hair back from her face and paused to raise an eyebrow at Logan. The room seemed to have warmed by several degrees. Gently, Max laid Logan's head in her lap. He was quiet.

I've let you down, Max. I think Eyes Only is finished…." Logan started, but his voice trailed off.

Max laid a finger on his lips.

"There's time for that tomorrow."

In a moment, he was asleep.

She took a cheap cell phone out of her bag and started dialing.


	30. Ch 30 A Patch of Snow

"The city waits with bated breath to hear the autopsy results in the so-called Eyes Only killing," the familiar STV voice droned. "Based on sources present at the investigation, it appears that Eyes Only may have been a man in his late 30's, who used a wheelchair. Immediate identification was impossible, given the condition of the body, and will have to await further forensic evidence."

Up in his tower office, Mr. Snow clicked the remote to switch off the television. He fingered his ring, set with the yellow stone, twisting it around his broad finger.

"What could possibly be taking this long? Once they identify Logan Cale as Eyes Only, the police will exert their considerable muscle in locating his place of residence and lead me right to his little bat cave. Then, once the place is locked down and yellow-taped, one of you clowns can put on your little policeman disguise and go in there to bring back my merchandise."

"What the hell happened in that boathouse anyway? You were supposed to just go back there and retrieve the flash drive,"

"I don't know boss," Miller replied. "Some guy tackled me, out of the blue. It might have been a couple of guys. Anyway, I…I never found the flash drive."

"You better hope that's true, because if those files turn up anywhere else, you are a dead man, Miller." Mr. Snow voice sounded as cold as his namesake. "I thought we'd have to start over when Vann got himself killed." The man fingered his ring with the yellow stone again.

"But this way will work too. At least I got this ring back from him. He didn't deserve a gift like this if he was going to go and get himself killed."

"I just wish they would hurry up and identify that body."


	31. Ch 31 Fighting Form

"Ta da. Get up sleepy head. I wish I could let you sleep longer, but we got bad guys to catch. I've been waking you up every hour or so to pour a little water down your throat, but it didn't seem to interfere with your sleep too much."

"What time is it?" Logan squinted at Max through bleary eyes.

"It's noon. You've only been asleep for four hours and I really wish I could have let you sleep longer."

"Here, Logan, take these," Max continued, handing him his glasses.

Logan put his glasses on and looked again at Max. She was sitting in a beat-up sport wheelchair.

"Where did you get that?" he said eagerly, gesturing to the chair.

"I called your buddy Jack, and got him to let me borrow a spare team chair. I couldn't risk going back to the apartment yet. Give it a spin."

She hopped out of the chair and pushed it lightly towards Logan.

Logan sat up slowly, groaning.

"Bones getting old?" Max teased.

"No," Logan laughed, "bones resenting being thrown around and being beaten to a pulp."

"God, Max. Did I ever miss you," Logan grinned up at her as he pulled himself up into the chair.

"Although _this _runs a tight second." He gestured to the chair leaned back with a sigh. Giving the wheels an experimental push, Logan popped up onto the back wheels and gave a couple of spins

"I took the liberty of getting you a fresh change of clothes, not that the wet, mud-covered ones you were wearing weren't great."

"And… a little snack," Max continued, tossing Logan a brown paper sack.

He pulled out a slightly squished sandwich out and inspected it.

"American cheese?"

"Please!" Max wadded up her empty bag and winged it at the side of his head. "Thank god. For a few moments, I thought you might have been swapped out, but now I realize you must be the _real_ Logan Cale that I know and love."

Two sandwiches, minus the American cheese, and two liters of water later, Logan leaned back, satisfied.

"That's it, Max," he said as he finished talking. That's the whole story up to now. At least that's the part I know." He opened up Max's mini laptop and began a security scan.

"Max, I don't know how we're going to get Eyes Only out of this. Once the autopsy results get out, Vann's boss, this Mr. Snow, is going to know he's been duped and he's going to come looking for Logan Cale. I'm telling you, they referred to me by name. The results are probably out already, for all we know."

"Well, I doubt that, Logan. Alec's over there right now, trying to stall the autopsy results until we make a plan."

Max hesitated. "At least, I think Alec's there. I really pissed him off. I said some things I shouldn't have."

Max traced a finger along the edge of the table.

Logan's hands paused over the keyboard. He leaned forward, resting his chin on his hands.

"Yeah, he has a way of bringing that out in people. But, you know Max, he's the one who taught Eva all those survival skills and I'm afraid I didn't make it an easier on him either."

"Shit, you know I was never good at apologizing."

"Yeah, I'm aware of that." Logan smiled.

The computer chimed as the the security software finished its scan. Neither of them said anything for a few minutes as Logan surveyed the Eyes Only surveillance sites, looking for any sign of a breach in security.

He breathed a sigh of relief, "So far the dams are holding. Everyone's sort of waiting for a signal from me, I guess. I mean a sign from Eyes Only, that is.

"Well, what's the plan? Even if we can suppress or change the autopsy results, this Snow character still knows who you are. And we don't know who he is. How can you even lean on a guy if you can't find him?"

Logan's fingers flew over the keyboard. He paused and stopped to stare at the wall, deep in thought.

"Gimme a second, Max. I think that if can delay those results, I can find a way to bring him out into the open."

"Really. All right, let's hear the brilliant plan"

"Okay. Here goes."


	32. Ch 33 The Heist

**AN: An update at last. So sorry it took so long, but I haven't forgotten. Hopefully, the next update will be coming soon, since we're closing in on the end of the story. All will be revealed. Let me know about any thoughts you have on my crazy long story. If you read it in a while, recall that Logan had escaped after being kidnapped and he and Max had reunited on a truck bound for south Seattle. The world thinks EO may be dead since a body in a wheelchair was found in an alley with the EO signature red, white and blue painted around it, but we know he's escaped. That doesn't even begin to cover the convoluted plot that this story has become, but, hey, I've had a heck of time writing it. late night.**

_South Seattle, about 30 minutes outside the city._

_An abandoned apartment building_

______________________________________________________________________

It had been almost 72 hours since Logan's truck had first been hi-jacked.

Nearly 56 hours since the news had declared Eyes Only dead.

48 hours ago since Logan had paddled away from the waterfront

36 hours ago, he had almost shot Max as she tried to rescue him

That also meant that it had been just over 72 hours since he had had a real meal, although the sandwich Max had brought him had taken the edge off his hunger. Of course, the sandwich had done nothing to satisfy the hunger which had first awakened when he first saw Max. And now that he had awoken somewhat refreshed, the feeling caught like a flame and threatened to burst into a full-sized bonfire.

"Hey, Max." Logan came closer and caught her hand. She squeezed his hand, then gently pried her hand loose. She took the plastic bag that Logan handed her and began putting the empty water bottles into it. They were getting ready to leave the abandoned building.

"Your plan stinks, Logan." Max said as she stuffed Logan's discarded wet clothes into another bag.

"If you've got any better ideas, I'd be happy to hear them." Logan answered as he handed Max the last of their things.

"Logan, I went over the plan with Alec like you asked. He actually had some useful intel from his little surveillance mission, but….still. This plan has about a five percent chance of working even if everything's perfect – and that's counting on luck and I do not like to count on luck"

"I know, Max," Logan grinned, "As someone used to say, there's no such thing as luck. Success depends on having a well-thought-out plan that's executed with precision.'"

The sun was going down, giving an orange glow to Logan's sandy hair. He sat tilted onto the two back wheels of his borrowed wheelchair, one hand on the railing at the top of the front steps.

Max shoved the plastic bag into his lap and pushed past him to go down the stairs.

"I told you what I thought about your plan, so don't try to talk me into liking it," Max said, leaning on the railing at the foot of the stairs, her back to Logan. "Why don't you just let Alec and I…"

"Well, that's just great," Logan's voice turned steely. "After all these years, you really don't think that I can pull this off."

"Don't be an idiot, Logan." Max's eyes flashed back at him. "You weren't the one watching the non-stop news coverage on the death of Eyes Only on every station in Seattle."

"Please, Max. You know I'm fine." Logan started down the steps.

Instead of answering, Max walked over to the grey van parked at the curb and swung herself up into the driver's seat.

Logan bumped down the last step and made his way over to the passenger side of the van. Max sat with her hands resting on the steering wheel.

"You trust me, don't you, Max?"

Max silently closed the door and started the engine, "Let's just get this bitch over with."

.

____________________________________________________________________

_78__th__ precinct – Seattle PD_

Assistant Police Chief Matt Sung stopped at the front desk to check in with his assistant. His mind was still reeling from the news of the Eyes Only shooting. How could he _not _have seen that Logan Cale, his friend, had been Eyes Only all along? It was because Eyes Only had always seemed to be larger-than-life. Logan had just seemed to be a regular guy, trying to do his part. Now, Matt realized that Logan had worked very hard to give him the impression that he was a regular guy. How could he have been so stupid?

Matt tried to piece together everything that had happened that day. The ME had brought the body to the precinct morgue, but Matt had been avoiding the trip down to the basement all day, dreading that the body might be his old friend Logan's body. Then, he had received a phone call from someone named Alec, who claimed to have known Logan and his friend, Max. This guy Alec said that he wanted to get a look at the body as soon as possible, preferably before the autopsy results came out. He didn't say how he had gotten Matt's name, but he had mentioned both Logan and Max. Maybe the two had finally gotten together. Matt hoped so. Even before he had met Max, Matt had sensed that she had meant a lot to his friend. Matt had been helping out Eyes Only for years, but Logan had never asked for any personal favors until the day Max was detained in Langford prison. After Logan's accident, he had seemed to lose his confident swagger with the opposite sex, but Matt had seen the sparks flying between Max and Logan even if Logan had seemed blind to them.

Lost in his own thoughts, Matt was having trouble paying attention to his assistant, Jean.

"Chief Sung, did you hear me?" Jean said. "They moved the body from that Eyes Only shooting. It isn't in the building anymore."

"Are you sure they moved it, Jean?" Matt paused outside the door to his office, still talking to Jean..

"Yes, sir. It's definitely gone," she answered.

"It can't be, Jean. I'm sure the Chief wanted the body in _our_ morgue. Why else would he ask me to skip the local coroner and send it here? He wants the chain of evidence as short as possible...There's no way he would transfer it somewhere else," Matt waited again for Jean as she flipped through some papers.

"Well, Sir. The techs said they had papers ordering a transfer to another facility. The body left at 14:00. Someone signed the order, but I can't make out the signature on this fax…I can find out if you like."

"Let me know if you find out anything else? Otherwise, I've got a body to…"

"…catch." Matt's last words died away as he entered his office and the door swung closed behind him.

A man had stepped out from behind the bookcase in his office.

"Chief Sung? My name is Alec. I called you before. I'm a friend of Max…and Logan Cale. Sorry to just drop in, but I'm wondering if you might be up for an old-fashioned Eyes Only mission. . ."

_____________________________________________________________________

In his lavishly furnished office on the other side of town, Mr. Snow stood up slowly and made his way over to the screen mounted on the wall. Snow was congratulating himself for installing bugging devices and cameras at the 22nd precinct, the department that held jurisdiction over most of Snow's neighborhood. It was how he stayed one step ahead of the police.

Snow squinted at the image on the screen.

"Look at that, boss," Snow's henchman stared at the screen too. "There's finally something happening. A grey van is pulling up and someone's getting out of it."

The two men peered at the image on the flat panel.

Snow tapped his fingers on the desk impatiently. "I told you that getting that body moved to our local morgue would come in handy. Even if there's no autopsy report yet…at least we've got enough guys on the take at that station that we can keep the place bugged. We've got cameras outside and inside. Maybe we'll see something useful yet. Maybe we'll find out what the autopsy reports going to say _before_ it comes out.

Mr. Snow stared at the screen. "Can you tell who's getting out of the van?"

"It's too dark. Someone's pushing some sort of laundry cart into the building. I'm switching the feed to the interior cameras."

The flat panel screen went dark.

"Hey, what happened to the feed?" Snow barked.

"The lights are still off in inside the autopsy room, Mr. Snow. We'll be able to see when they turn them on, boss."

______________________________________________________________

The two voices, one male and one female, crackled over the speaker on Snow's desk. The screen was still dark. The voices inside the morgue were soft, but they came over the bugging devices clearly.

The female voice started, "So, admit it. Impersonating Logan Cale wasn't a bad idea, was it?"

The man's voice came through clearly now, "It was brilliant. Cale's an ass anyway. Serves him right." The two voices continued to come in clearly over the feed.

Suddenly, the flat screen went from black to grey as someone switched on a dim light in the autopsy room. Snow could clearly see the two people in the room.

The man, whose voice they had heard, leaned casually against one of the counters, opening and closing a knife he held in his hands. A woman, dressed in the laundry service jumpsuit, her dark wavy hair pulled back neatly, moved along the wall with her back to the camera, opening each metal door in the autopsy suite and peering inside. , with her back to the camera.

_____________________________________________________________

Across town, Mr. Snow leaned back in his chair.

"Ah, now we're getting somewhere. Turn up the volume on those mikes. I want to hear every word those clowns say. That'll teach 'em. I've got the sound and picture too. What more can a man ask for?" Snow air settled down in front of the screen to enjoy the show, taking a swig from his drink.

Suddenly, he slammed the glass onto the table, shattering it.

"Son of a bitch! Who the hell is that?"

Snow stared at the man on the screen, recognizing the face in the dim light.

"You were supposed to take care of Cale! If he's not Cale, then who is? Who the hell did you shoot in that alley anyway?"

"And why isn't that guy in a wheelchair?"

_____________________________________________________________________

No wheelchair. He was wearing a baseball cap, pulled low, and he wasn't wearing glasses either, but even in the dim light, the face and the sandy hair were unmistakable. It was the same man Vann had questioned in the boathouse. The same man Snow's men had gunned down in the alley.

Logan Cale. Or who they thought to be Logan Cale.

"As far as I'm concerned, Cale can go down for Eyes Only," the sandy-haired man's voice came through clearly. "Back in the day, Cale Industries got fat on the backs of the Seattle public and that Logan Cale was the worst. Never seemed to have worked a day in his life."

The woman continued to look through the bodies in storage. She spoke again, "Is that why you picked him to impersonate? Guess it's unlucky for him. Too bad you'll have to go back under the knife. His face suits you."

"I was only borrowing it anyway," the man answered. "Good thing Cale was such hermit. No photographs of him in years. Not since he ended up in the wheelchair. The docs did a pretty good job on my face, don't you think. It's close match, huh?"

From where he stood against the counter, the man pretended to aim a knife throw at the far wall. He thought better of it and snapped the knife closed again, continuing, "And when we take the body, they'll never be able to prove one way or another who it was."

The woman shone a flashlight onto one of the bodies. "I found the right body. I'll take the light end. You take his shoulders," the woman continued. "Shove that case out of the way, will you?"

________________________________________________________________

Across town, stared at the scroon. Someone had pushed a metal case in front of the camera and the screen went dark again, but Snow could still the voices clearly.

Snow's henchman shifted his attention to another computer screen that showed the outside feed.

"Boss, another car's pulling up. Looks like a Crown Vic. No uniforms, but it looks like a couple of cops are entering the building."

The screen from the autopsy feed was still dark, but Snow and his man could still hear the audio. They leaned in to pick up every word.

_____________________________________________________________

A new voice rang out.

"Police! Back away from the body and get your hands where I can see them! I said back away, both of you."

Shouts and gunfire echoed over the speakers in Snow's office.

"Chief Sung here! Requesting backup at the morgue on Grossmont. Send a bus too. 66th and Grossmont, side entrance."

One last shot rang out.

______________________________________________________________

The speaker went silent as the transmission ended. The screen was still dark and Snow stared at his own livid expression, reflected in its smooth surface.

"That Eyes Only played me the whole time."

______________________________________________________________

Inside the autopsy room, Max examined the spot on the wall where Mr. Snow's surveillance camera had been before Alec's well-aimed bullet had blasted it into oblivion.

"Good shot. I guess you had to do it the hard way." Max turned around to face the new arrivals.

"Only one camera, right, Max? Did you find any other ones?" Alec stepped into the middle of the room.

"No, Alec. That was the only one. You were…right." Max added, "About this afternoon, I…"

Alec holstered his gun and shrugged, "No time for that Max, we gotta go."

Matt stood in the doorway, weapon still drawn.

Logan eyed his old friend, still rooted to his spot leaning against the counter.

"Look, Matt. I'm so sorry. Those years ago…I didn't know what else to do." Logan began.

Matt said nothing. He glanced down at Logan's feet as he stood leaning against the counter and raised an eyebrow.

"Oh, this?" Logan nodded toward his feet. "It's an illusion I assure you."

"Okay, no time for chatting. We've got to get going. Call it in, Chief Sung." Alec waved them on impatiently.

Matt nodded and spoke into his com link, "We're at the 22nd precinct on Grossmont. Correction on the bus. Only bodies here, no live ones."

Logan relaxed his death grip on the countertop as Max slid an arm around his waist. She pushed the laundry cart closer and held it still while Logan shifted his weight forward and grabbed its edge. He hoisted his himself up onto the edge of cart. Wordlessly, Max helped him to lift his legs, encased in the heavy braces up and over the edge. Shifting his weight back, he unlocked his braces and folded his long legs in front of him.

"Back in the cart. Only this time, I'll have a dead body next to me." Logan gestured to the body still lying inside the cold storage.

"Hey, this was _your _plan. Besides, it'll only be about five minutes," Max answered.

Quickly, Alec and Max wrapped the body of Tim Young, Eyes Only informant, now inadvertent Eyes Only impersonator, placing it next to Logan in the laundry cart. Finally, Logan stripped off his jacket and cap and tossed them to Alec, who put them on. As Max and Alec started to push the laundry cart towards the door, Logan ducked under some loose laundry. Four minutes had passed since Matt and Alec had stormed the building. Matt turned his attention back to the crackling com link.

The others left the building. Three alive, one long dead.

_  
____________________________________________________________________

"Mr. Snow, someone's coming out of the building. It's that woman and Cale … or whatever his real name is. They're still pushing that laundry cart again. What do you think they're doing?"

Snow stared incredulously at the monitor.

"They're stealing my body is what they're doing! They're stealing my only link to Eyes Only. And if the guy doing the stealing is impersonating Logan Cale, then who the hell did you shoot in the alley? Tell your man to get in there and stop them!"

"I can't, sir. There're too many cops around. We'd get caught for sure!"

_____________________________________________________________________

Max and Alec pushed the laundry cart hard, banging past the loading dock doors and down the ramp toward the van. She heard sirens in the distance as she shoved the cart the last few feet up the ramp, into the back of the van. Climbing into the driver's seat and cranking the ignition, she looked up at the rearview mirror to see Logan's face.

Sitting up in the laundry cart, he grinned at her.

"How'd we do?"


End file.
